


Riposa l'aqua, riposa lu vientu

by rroseselavy



Series: Aegis [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Italian Isles Hetalia
Genre: Abduction, Angst, Anti-Colonial Sentiment, Boats, Coming of Age (sort of), Fencing/Swordplay, Freeform, Gen, Human Names Used, Kidnapping, Magic, Napoleonic Wars, Odyssey, Revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-12 07:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 45,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7925434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rroseselavy/pseuds/rroseselavy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he was a little boy, more than anything, Malta wanted a dog. And when he got a little older, all he wanted was to go home. But it will take time, a sword, and a lot of guts to get back to where he's from. </p><p>Odyssey-inspired series involving the British acquisition of Malta and the beginning of the Italian independence movement! OCs used but no main romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the record:
> 
> Salvatore/Sasà is Malta, Serafina/Nina is Sicily, and Antine is Sardinia. Corsica may appear later, and his name is Marcel.

Salvatore wanted a dog.

  
Anyone who ever spoke to the little boy knew this. Like clockwork, when he came home he would drop his threadbare sack full of bread, almonds, and dried figs on the dirt floor of the house and declare this desire to his older sister. Sister, with wild curly hair in something resembling a braid, would remind Salvatore that they already had two cats.

  
“But cats don’t like me.” It was true. She had inherited an affinity for cats from her mother. He, not even sharing a mother with her, was not in the cats’ good graces.

  
“They will like you. Give it time. We don’t have enough money to support a dog, anyhow.” She would turn her eyes back to whatever dish she was cooking or whatever book she was reading and usually the discussion ended there.

  
But on some days, where the desire was stronger than usual, he would pad over to the rickety desk she was working at and prop his chin on his hand, resting an elbow on any remaining surface, and ask again. His big grey eyes would get bigger and wetter and his lip would quiver. Sometimes he would smile encouragingly, showing his dimples and his missing baby teeth.

  
“Please?”

  
“Sasà, it’s not possible. The cats eat mice, so we don’t have to buy extra food for them. A dog needs more food than that.”

  
“But Nina—“

  
Her eyes darted over to meet his, exasperation chilling their sunny amber color.

  
“I said no, Salvatore.”

  
He would ask her friends and superiors to no avail, always hoping one of them would appeal on his behalf. Sometimes he would act upset that he had no dog to play with. Other times he would act blissful and cherubic. It was hard to look cherubic with too-short black hair and a face covered in scrapes, but he made it work.

  
It was maybe a few months after he stopped asking his sister every day that his cousin Antine walked into their house with a wet, shrieking puppy.

  
“I found him in the river…his brothers and sisters weren’t so lucky. Sasà, do you think you can protect him?”

  
Big, hopeful grey eyes.

  
“Yes, SIR!”

  
Nina rummaged in their cupboards for any remaining wine that she could have, knowing Antine knew that she would not be one to say no to saving a half-drowned puppy.

  
The dog’s name was decided to be Pepe. His fur grew in soft and mottled grey, he pranced instead of walked, and he was Sasà’s dream. They would skip fencing and Latin together and wander the woods (to his teacher’s chagrin), searching for truffles and knocking chestnuts out of the trees with his sheathed practice sword. Pepe would run after lizards and rabbits until dusk, when Salvatore would decide it was time to go home.

********************************

A good six months had passed since her cousin had brought her little brother his new companion. Nina was sitting outside her small house and watching her little brother pretend to fight off dragons with his wooden sword when she saw someone in the distance walking down the dirt path leading to their house. His hair was short and straw yellow.

“Salvatore, take Pepe and go play in the woods.”

“But that’s so far away, sis—“

“Do as I say!”

He scurried off, wooden sword tucked under his lean arm.

The blond man was clearly not in a hurry, as it took several minutes for him to amble up to her doorstep. Nina had enough time to know what he wanted and how she could get ready for it. His smile was polite. It was not friendly.

“Good evening, Miss Sicily,” he greeted her in halting French, wincing at hearing himself speaking.

“Good evening, Sir England,” she responded coolly. “What brings you to the Mediterranean? Surely you are not lost and looking for Spain or Naples?”

“I am here for Malta. We have barricaded the French from the coast to keep them from stealing any more of his precious resources and we intend to make him a protectorate.”

“Were your intentions set before you ever spoke to him about going with you?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Let me speak slower. For someone whose language is sixty percent French, your French is really not that good—“

He scowled.

“Did you ask him if he wants to go with you? Or do you intend to take him by force? Do you think of his people? Do you think of me? Do you think of wanting to take my little brother from me? For what purpose do you want him? What does he have that you need? You have so many other colonies…why him?”

He looked at her small house, with the laundry hanging on wires and trees. He looked at her, tired and dark-skinned, wearing a worn and patched shirt tucked into a threadbare skirt. Her sleeves were rolled up and her skin was callused. She had no shoes. Neither of them had shoes.

“Honestly, you’re also in no place to be taking care of a child, Serafina.”

She stiffened at hearing him use her human name.

“Napoleon is going to bury you loyalists. You’re loyal to the Bourbons, aren’t you? Do you really want Salvatore to be a part of that? Do you want him to watch the great King-dom of Si-ci-ly—,” he singsonged, his terribly accented French sour with sarcasm, “—being torn asunder? Do you want to explain to him why his Latin and fencing tutor decided to suddenly beat you to a---“

She hadn’t noticed he was getting closer until he was inches away, his thick leather boots knocking against the cobblestone of her house’s threshold. He caught himself, and then his lips pulled back into something similar to a smile.

“You can’t hide him forever, Miss Sicily.”

“He’s just a little boy, Signor Kirkland. I can damn well try.”

“I’ll be back for him.”

She smiled warmly, grabbing his hand to shake it. He felt his knuckles crack and he flinched.

“Do you feel my grip, sir? Do you feel my hand? You can take my brother when these hands are cold, dead, and unmoving. Good evening, and safe travels.”

*************************

“Francis sent me a letter to ask why you stopped coming to your lessons.”

“They’re so boring! I am too good, I have decided.” He sat down for dinner with a huff. She smiled at the little boy, cutting some bread for him.

“Sasà, I know you have used your sword plenty. You went away to the Holy Land when you were smaller. You learned a lot about how to swordfight there. But this is more than that. This is about how to hold yourself in a proper manner. It’s how to follow rules, how to behave properly. You are one day going to be grown up. That might be hard to imagine, but some day it will happen. You will be big and strong, and you will eat and speak with kings and queens instead of puffing your chest out next to soldiers. And to be around nobility, you must know how to properly duel and how to properly use Latin. Also, it is rude to leave Francis out in the sun waiting for you! Day after day, he sat there thinking you were coming to see him. Think of the others you are going to help by being strong and educated.”

“…what if I don’t want to be proper and sit with kings?”

“It is our duty, Sasà. Think of it as a game. You can be polite and proper when you meet kings and queens, but you can be like me and come home and run through the streets like a madman as much as you please. But you can only do that if you behave amongst the nobles.”

“I never see you go see kings and queens.”

She winked at the little boy, taking a bite of some chicken.

“That’s because Spain does it for me, since I’m considered a colony. But you will be better than me. You will be your own country someday soon, and you will be by the side of your own king and queen.”

She finally got the little boy to capitulate, agreeing to start going back to the dreaded Latin lessons and to sacrifice his pride for an epée.

“But one thing. Sasà, I need to punish you for skipping that much of your lessons, do you understand?”

The little boy got very quiet, his eyes drifting down to his empty dinner plate.

“Yes, Nina.”

“You may not bring Pepe to lessons anymore.”

He blanched, his mouth screwing shut.

“Pepe will wait for you here, I promise.”

“Okay.”

She picked up his plate and hers, walking over to wash them in the basin.

“I want you to clean your room, as well. Romano is coming down for the harvest and to check on the trees. You will be getting a bath tomorrow.”

“Why should I have to be clean?” he asked testily. “ _I’m_ not the one betrothed to him.”

She shot a look back at him.

“It’s rude to receive a guest when you and your house are not clean, Salvatore…and it was not my decision; the Bourbon family decided it would be best for us to unify…”

He swung his legs back and forth, tapping on the dinner table.

“Will I marry someday?”

She looked over at him, eyes softening.

“If you find someone when you’re older, I’m not stopping you.”

He thought for a moment.

“Can I marry Pepe?”

    Mornings have a habit of coming whether you want them to or not. He went off to his lessons at dawn, taking his small burlap sack of bread and cheese for his lunch. Pepe woke up to follow him. The boy knelt down at Pepe’s small paws, looking him in his big brown eyes. The dog sneezed, thumping his tail.

“Stay, boy. I will be back.”

Pepe sat down on the dirt floor with a huff as Sasà grabbed his books and left for the day.

Francis greeted him with fifty verbs to conjugate and a two hour-long lesson on form to make up for all the time Salvatore had missed. Salvatore came home tired and sore.


	2. Chapter 2

The sun beat down on Serafina’s straw sun hat as she pruned the orange trees. Salvatore slept under the shade while the older children worked. Pepe chased a hedgehog through the bushes. Antine was probably harassing the locals. 

            “Romano, he wants Malta.”

            “No shit, they’ve blockaded the island completely from Napoleon. Not without reason, I might add…those bastards took his sword and his valuables. He took his relic sword, Nina. Those are priceless.”

            “I know, he cried for days. But…am I being selfish, keeping him here? He’s my little brother. We need to stay together.”

The mainlander’s brow furrowed. Off in the distance, Pepe began to bark.

            “And you KNOW they only want him because of his resources. Limestone is becoming more and more important. Salvatore’s landmass is _brimming_ with it. Arthur tried to act like…like it was because I wasn’t fit to raise him. As if he was doing me a favor.”

            “Nina, you know I’m disinclined to agree with that… _Englishman…”_ The word dripped out of his mouth like hot tar, “but you can barely provide for the two of you with what the Bourbons leave you after they take your crops and your fish. They take so much of your money just so you can stay in that little house by yourself. If you both moved into Antonio’s house with me…you know he’d love that, he dotes on Salvatore whenever you even let him near the kid--“

           “That is out of the question.”

            He rolled his eyes. Hers narrowed.

            “What?”

            “See, it would only benefit you and Salvatore but you refuse to do it. I don’t get it.”

            “I live by myself and pay the extra money so that I answer to Sicilian officials and not Spaniards and Frenchmen.”

            “You’re the only person I know who would pay extra for a lower quality of life.”

            “It’s different for us, _lupeddu._ We’re islands. We need our independence.”

            “We’re not so different…and why do you need the administrative separation if you guys are already separated from us physically? I feel like all you’re doing is overcompensating.”

            She smirked, twisting her body while holding the shears to get a better look at him.

            “You’re a brave man to argue with me while I’m holding something pointy.”

            His hazel eyes flicked to the nasty blades of the shears in her rough hands.

            “They’re also six inches deep in a totally fine branch. I will have time to run.”

            “You fucker, you told me this was—“

            “It’s the one above it. I was wondering if you were ever going to ask.”

            She wrested the shears from the mistaken bad branch only to twist and overcorrect, burying them in another tree.

            “Well done. Remind me to let you cut wedding cakes.”

            “Fuck you, this damn thing's nearly twice my size. But you know what I mean, right? About earlier? He’s my little brother. He needs to stay with me. Family has to stay together.”

            “You know I can’t relate to that; Veneziano’s been separated from me since as long as I can remember.”

            “If Antine were taken away from you, then. You could never see Antine again?”

            The taller one balked, scratching the back of his neck.

            “You can’t really take him away…he’s a grown-ass adult.”

            Sicily scoffed.

            “For fuck’s sake, Lovino. For the sake of rhetoric, Antine is 10 years old and some foreign power comes to take him away. You would be upset, no?”

            “I mean…in some ways that would be a blessing.”

            She laughed, turning back to look for Salvatore. The joke on her lips died when she noticed he wasn’t where she had left him.

            “Sasà?” she called, “ _Unni si_?”

 

Letting go of the shears embedded in the unfortunate orange tree, she ran to look and see if he had moved…only to see prints of heavy leather boots in the ground. The same ones previously seen scuffing the stones at her house’s threshold.

The thought of working was abandoned. All she could do was run after where she saw the boot-prints leading. They stopped at the pier, where she could see a Royal ship just out of reach…and a shock of blond hair off the stern.

“ _CA MINCHIA!”_

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Salvatore’s dream, his sister was brushing the dark hair from his eyes and singing like when they were younger. She didn’t sing him to sleep anymore (by his request…he was far too grown up for that sort of thing).

_“E` beddu stu carusa la mattina ca rose e ciuri cogli._

_Ca rose e ciuri colgi nta jardinu…”_

She seemed soft and relaxed. He had not seen her this peaceful in years.

 

_“Cogli nna mazzu pi lu to parrinu,_

_cca iddu ca ti fici cca iddu ca ti fici Cristianu…”_

How did he feel like he was being rocked back and forth when she was holding still?

 

_“Riposa l’aqua_

_Riposa lu vientu…”_

 

Her image started to fade away. He began to hear shouts. Alarmed, Salvatore tried to get up but couldn’t.

 

_“Riposa la sirena,_

_Riposa stu carusu nta lu liettu.”_

She was gone, and he was awake and not where he’d fallen asleep. He knew he was on a boat from the rocking, but he had no clue as to where he was going. A clammy hand grabbed his wrist before he could cry out in shock.

 

“You have a new name, boy. Salvatore Pavone, you are now Salvatore St. John, the Maltese Protectorate of the United Kingdom.”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had taken both Lovino and Antine to restrain Serafina from jumping into the ocean to swim after the boat that held her brother and his captor. Pepe only sat at the dock, watching the English boat get smaller and smaller on the horizon. Serafina had lost feeling in her hands from rapidly clenching her fists and flattening her hands back out to slap against any offending surface.

When they had managed to will her down from incoherent shrieking to heavy breathing, the two men started to speak of retaliation.

“First of all, we need to tell Antonio,” the Sardinian asserted, adjusting his glasses after being hit in the face a few times. “If anyone knows how to deal with English nonsense, it would probably be him.”

“Oh really? Him and what armada?”

Antine scoffed at the mainlander’s flippancy.

“Would you rather ask Francis? I’m sure _that_ would go over way better.”

“I’m not touching that fruity bastard with a ten and a half foot pole.”

That managed to snap the Sicilian girl out of her torpor.

“He has done a lot for us. More than Spain ever has.”

Antine burst into laughter.

“I never thought I would see the day that you would openly defend Francis Bonnefoy, Nina. Especially after all he’s done to _you._ ”

She took a deep breath and rubbed her face with a splayed out hand.

“Talk to whomever you see fit. I just want my brother back…and I can’t leave until I finish the harvest.”

Sicilians are not known for their height; it is usually their force of personality that shoots out of them and works almost like stilts. When she left the pier, it was gone. And neither of them had ever seen her look that small before.

The teenager from Rome looked over at the Sardinian next to him.

“We just witnessed a goddamn kidnapping.”

The Sardinian adjusted his glasses again, the opaque lenses glinting in the dying sunlight.

“Watch your fucking language.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lupeddu: little wolf. She's referencing the Roman she-wolf myth in a facetious way. Romano's the son of a Roman and represents Rome itself, but he's not big or threatening so he's just a little wolf puppy. 
> 
> Unni si: where are you?
> 
> "Ca minchia" is a Sicilian expletive; kind of between "dammit" and "what the fuck" in intensity.
> 
> The lullaby she's singing in Salvatore's dream is called "Bedda stu carusu" (Beautiful little boy) and is also in Sicilian (wow... it's like she's Sicily or something).
> 
> Translation:
> 
> How beautiful is this little boy  
> who picks rose and flowers each morning in  
> the garden.  
> Pick a bunch of flowers to give to your  
> priest  
> because he made you a Christian.  
> May the waters rest.  
> May the winds rest.  
> May the sirens rest.  
> May this little boy rest in his bed


	3. Chapter 3

Salvatore had not seen someplace this large in ages. The castles in Spain, the faint memories he had of the Holy Land, all seemed to pale in comparison to the _palace_ this strange man lived in. Huge bowls full of freshly cut roses. China mugs lined his immaculate shelves and the house possessed wide expanses of marble flooring bedecked with beautifully hand-woven rugs from Persia and India. He had a tray filled with buttery crumbs laid out, no doubt previously full of sweets. Salvatore wondered if this man could cook as well as his house looked. His stomach rumbled.

He had told him that his name was Arthur. He said that he was going to protect Salvatore from Napoleon and the soldiers that stole his things and hurt him. He was much taller and stronger-looking than his sister was; he wondered if Arthur knew how to fight like his sister as well. Was Arthur a knight like Salvatore used to be?

“Excuse me, sir…when are the others coming?”

“Pardon?”

“My dog, my big sister, her…friend, my cousins. When are they coming, sir?”

Arthur stopped, and then chuckled.

“Salvatore…it’s just you.”

“What do you mean it’s just me?”

“Salvatore, you are the only protectorate of the United Kingdom. You are the only one of them who has gotten the _privilege—“_ he put emphasis on the final word, green eyes burning into the Maltese boy’s grey ones “—of being called a part of the Commonwealth.”

The boy’s eyes darkened.

“So…am I never seeing my family again? Or my dog? They are gone?”

Arthur’s eyebrow lifted, almost imperceptibly due to the aforementioned eyebrow’s thickness.

“They’re not…gone, as you put it. Just not here, where you live. You’ve been away from them before, yes?”

“Yes, sir.” He stopped. “Excuse me, did you just say I was to live here?”

“Yes.”

“Far away from my island, sir?”

“Yes, Salvatore.”

“But how will I protect my people, sir? Francis has even taken my sword.”

Well, not necessarily Francis…Francis said they would put it away for safekeeping, but his boss had lied. That sword was very precious to him…he would like it back. He quietly made a vow to do so whenever he had figured out where he was.

“That will be my job now.”

Bemused, the young boy looked up at the pale man in front of him

 “You, sir? Malta has a very strong sun. It needs someone with a resistance to it.”

  Arthur pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling quietly.

   “Salvatore, you must be tired. Would you like me to show you to your room?”

The little boy smiled, showcasing his nice mix of baby and adult teeth.

 “Yes, sir. That would be very kind of you.”

He escorted the newest addition to his collection of young countries up to the boy’s very own bedroom. He was perplexed by how excited the little Maltese boy was by having his own sleeping quarters. He then realized that Malta and Sicily probably shared a room together back home.

“You will meet the others at tea. I expect you to clean yourself up before then.”

“There are others?”

“Yes, Salvatore.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Antonio’s jaw was clicking after clenching it for so long. Antine had dutifully told the Spaniard everything he had seen. The Spaniard, unfortunately, was not in the mood to deal with island affairs, especially not one this complex.

“I am meeting with him already to speak upon the English alliance with the Bourbons. Serafina, he is our ally against Napoleon. We can’t just accuse him of a crime we’re not sure he committed in the first place.”

“He _stole_ my—“

His hand fell firmly on her tense shoulder. She knew that if he squeezed, he’d pop something. She did not want him to squeeze.

“If I could help, I would. But the only proof you have is footprints and that ship’s sails.”

She could feel hot bile rising in the back of her throat.

“Royal white sails—“

He closed his frighteningly green eyes.

“I don’t want to hear it from you. You are not the only person in the world to have ever lost a brother. You know I care about Malta, but there are other things going on that need more care than…”

“Than what? The fact that your former worst enemy just _stole a child_?”

“Yes, he may have stolen a child, but he was _not my child._ Malta is French. Francis is going through something of a civil war at the moment and probably will not be able to help you with this either. This is up to you, okay? I can’t help you.”

She swallowed, tongue feeling dry and heavy in her mouth. She looked up to make eye contact with her superior.

“Serafina?”

“Okay.”

“Now, I want you to—“

The doors flung wide open to present a blond and unfortunately eyebrowed man sauntering into the corridor. He was immaculately dressed, with a perfectly false serene expression on his face. He walked like a peafowl in a royal courtyard. Nina was watching him very closely. Antonio stayed behind her, but watched intently.

“Ah, Miss Sicily—I was hoping I’d find you.”

She could feel every hair on her body stand up. Sweat began to bead between her shoulder blades. She smiled at Arthur.

“Really, sir?”

“Of course. “

He reached his hand out expectantly, waiting for hers. Hers slowly started to move forward.

Antonio’s words echoed in her head: _This is up to you, okay?_

_This is up to you…_

Call it muscle memory, but her hand was suddenly moving upwards, clenching into a fist and connecting squarely with his jaw. She felt his nose crack between her knuckles. Her other arm moved forward to shove him in the chest, knocking him to the ground. She could hear herself ask for her brother in Sicilian, hear her voice start to hike in pitch and volume. She could barely hear the shouting behind her, but she felt Antonio’s hands grab the crooks of her elbows and wrench her arms behind her back before she could continue. She knew he hissed something in her ear, but they were ringing too much for her to understand what he had said.

He was wiping the blood off of his face when her mind took back her body, when she felt herself hanging in Antonio’s bruising grasp. Knowing that she had broken Arthur’s nose was enough to make her satisfied.

“I don’t think you answered, sir,” she voiced, eyes ablaze. “What have you done with Salvatore?”

Antonio squeezed her arms and she let out a small gasp, feeling her shoulders and elbows twist unnaturally at the pressure.

“Salvatore is doing perfectly fine. He is eating well. He has his own room. Bigger than that little shanty of yours, I might add.”

She tried to move forward only for the Spaniard’s grip to tighten.

“Behave yourself, Serafina.”

“With that hair and skin…he won’t do so well amongst us.”

He looked back at her to see that same dark skin and twisting, coiled hair but narrow, calculating amber eyes. He hoped that by starting young, Malta would be more reasonable than her.

“None the matter. His bloodline aside, I will make a proper, English gentleman of him yet.”

She then, Gorgon-like, bared her teeth, taking him aback for a moment.

“His father is mine and his mother is the same as Roman Italy’s. He is the son of Carthage and Old Arabia, heir to the Punic Empire.”

“What on Earth does that have to do with me?”

“Salvatore is a prince and not a shepherd’s bastard like you, sir.”

Arthur’s face contorted into a sharp, mirthless smile.

“I have a meeting to attend to. Go back to your farm, Miss Sicily. You are amongst your kind there.”

Antonio only relaxed his grip on her when Arthur had cleared the corridor.


	4. Chapter 4

_“Keep your back straight, Salvatore. Don’t hunch over your plate like a wild animal.”_

_The little boy corrected the way his back curved. His sister smiled approvingly._

_“Yes, very good.”_

_He took his fork, holding it in a fist._

_“No, Sasà, like this. And balance your wrists on the table.” He blushed._

_“How come I learned how to use a sword properly before I learned how to use a fork and knife?”_

_Her smile faded a bit._

_“Everything happens in its own time and for its own reason. Sometimes it does not seem to make sense until you are looking back on it.”_

He had only come with his farming clothes, but he opened the armoire in his new room to see it had three small, perfectly measured, painfully starched suits for him. _These are English suits,_ he realized, remembering the nobles he would see walking about the city when he went into town to do errands. _Am I to wear English clothing now as well?_

He ran his short, puffy fingers along the fabric. This was better quality than anything he had owned in his life. He ignores the suits, ultimately deciding that they were too special for this “tea”, and takes a well-pressed linen shirt. He smells it and upsets himself when it does not smell like home.

Tea is announced, whatever that means. He had only ever heard of teatime in jokes about the English from his tutor and from his family. His main experience with the idea of “teatime” was with sneaking his sister’s half-finished cups of coffee once she had left it to run to the docks during fishing season. The stuff was blacker than pitch and bitter like tree bark since they couldn’t afford sugar.

A woman comes in to fetch him. Maybe when he sees these other people Arthur mentioned, things will start to make more sense. He made sure to round his shoulders as he walked. Maybe this was to be the time that his sister said he would eat with kings and queens! Maybe this wasn’t so crazy; maybe she had planned this to show him that anything could happen! Maybe it wasn’t forever!

If she had orchestrated this, this was the first time she would have done something to this extent.

The corridor finished in front of two heavy cedar doors, which were opened by two more servants. Salvatore could not believe his eyes.

Several other young boys his age were seated neatly in a row at a perfectly made table. One had skin darker than his, but the rest were all pale. When Salvatore came into view, they all broke ranks to rush and meet him, falling over each other to meet their new “brother”:

“What is Malta like?” “Do you like to hawk? Please come hawking with me!” “Are you really a knight? Where is your sword?” “I heard you beat up Turkey! Does he not like to talk about that with you?” “Are you Muslim?” “How are you a knight and Muslim?” “Did Napoleon beat you up?” “Do you support the Bourbon king or do you support Napoleon?”

He wanted to curl up away from all of them and not answer, but he puffed out his chest and said the following:

“Good afternoon! It is nice to meet you all! To answer your questions, Malta is the best place on Earth! This is indisputable! I…actually, I do love falconry, and I would gladly hawk with you! I had no idea that people did that in…where exactly are we? I was a knight…or am? I never relinquished my title. I am a knight and went with my Order to the Holy Lands when I was little. I remember some, but not a lot. I’m pretty good with a sword, I think…depends on the sword, I suppose. I am not Muslim anymore! I converted. My mother was a Muslim, though. I did win a fight with Sadik when I was smaller, but I had my sister’s help. And um…I have never met Napoleon personally…I am too small for him to personally meet with me yet. He has helped me but also not helped me more. He is not kind to the southern states. Or at least, that is what my sister and cousins say. Does…does that help?”

The blond, very pale one finally piped up the million-dollar question:

“What is your name?”

He didn’t know what exactly it was. Maybe it was the sudden bustle and human contact and… _homeness._ Perhaps he realized, upon looking out the pristine glass window behind his new companions, that this was the first time in his life that he hadn’t seen the sun in the span of a day. Maybe the crisp new leather shoes he was wearing had begun to pinch his feet. But he suddenly burst into tears.

The little boy got a hold of himself, wiped his eyes and had composed himself enough to seem unmovingly tough by the time Arthur and four other men came strolling into the room. The men with him were all taller, with strong smatterings of freckles across their cheeks and harder eyes. Each pair of eyes was a different shade of green.

The tallest, whose hair was redder than Salvatore thought was natural, was the first to address him.

“You must be the new one. What’s your name, lad?”

“Salvatore Pa---“ he hesitated, correcting himself in the presence of the Briton. “Salvatore St. John, sir.”

“Sal-va…salivator…Salvia…that’s rather a mouthful. I’m going to call ye Sal.”

The young boy’s eyes met with the much taller man’s. Salvatore’s face broke into a patient, almost patronizing smile.

“No, sir, you will not call me that.” The older fellow’s thick red eyebrows shot up a good two inches.

“Why not?”

“Because “Sal” is not my name, sir. My name is Salvatore. Please learn to pronounce it correctly.”

A nervous laugh disguised as a wheezing cough came from the dark-haired man behind the redhead in question. The blood-red headed man’s face twitched slightly. Arthur refused to make eye contact with anyone in the room. A boy with a bandage across his nose was thumping the neighboring blond boy with the back of his hand, muttering something animatedly. Arthur finally looked over to the pile of young boys by the table, and then back at the Maltese child who was still standing tentatively near the doorway.

“Boys, please have a seat.”

The younger gentlemen in the making all scurried into chairs, each one twitching or fidgeting in their own unique way. Salvatore sat himself between the bandaged boy and the blond one. They introduced themselves as Jett and Matthew. He liked them already.

“Christ, Arthur. Your…acquisitions seem to get younger and younger. This new one looks like he doesn’t even know his times tables.”

“He was being bullied mercilessly by the French soldiers, I had to step in.”

“He doesn’t seem to traumatized by that merciless bullying, Arthur,” drawled the dark-haired sibling, helping himself to some cucumber sandwiches. “I think he’d be a little more worse for wear if Napoleon drop-kicked him the way you said.”

Arthur scoffed.

“Caoimhean, I never said he was drop-kicked. I said he was having a hard time with Napoleonic forces in his territory.”

The reddest-headed one scoffed.

“He’s the one to gauge how much of a hard time it was, though, I’m sure. No ulterior motive there at all. Arthur loves any reason to have another small boy.”

Salvatore turned to look at Matthew, who had gulped audibly. He didn’t know what the man meant, but he assumed it wasn’t good due to the look on Arthur’s face.

“Alasdair, stop it. Liam, please pass the scones.”

 _Al-as-dair._ Salvatore decided to commit that name to memory. Along with Lee-am and Kee-van.

He was promptly and thankfully ignored for the rest of the period, quietly eating pastry-shaped rocks while his stomach rioted. What he wouldn’t give for some good honey to go with bread that didn’t turn to ash in his hands…

“Lad?”

He looked up from his lamentable toast, hoping that when he looked back at the toast it would be something worth eating.

“Yes, sir?”

“Do you fence?”

“I attempt to, sir.”

That actually got a smile out of the older, dark-haired gentleman.

“My sword was taken by the French, sir. If we were to match, it must be with both swords of yours.”

“Quite. I might also want to wait until you’re a little taller.” The Maltese boy blushed as the other man chuckled.

Jett leaned over to practically shout in Salvatore’s ear.

“What kind of animals live on your island?”

He had to think about that one. He knew Jett would most likely already know about the birds of Malta, but that was all that was coming up to him. That alarmed him; he had barely left his home for a day and he already felt like what he had of himself was slipping away.

All he could get out was “my dog” before Jett launched into a speech about the animals that lived with him, and that Malta ought to come by his room to see a lizard that he had caught the other day. Malta agreed to see Jett’s lizard, curious as to how lizards looked in other parts of the world, and shocked that Jett was fast enough. Salvatore himself had only ever come close; on his territory, lizards were small and VERY fast.

Tea was adjourned after Salvatore picked apart a few scones and ate the raisins, pretending they were dates. He found out they would have dinner shortly, so the pit in his stomach did not concern him too much. He got up and ran after Jett and Matthew before any of the older gentlemen tried to talk to him.

“So you can really use a sword?” Jett asked, slowing to a trot down the corridor.

Salvatore beamed.

“Yes, I can! Do you want to spar?”

Jett practically demanded to be taught, saying he would trade various possessions for the opportunity.

“Who were those men that came in with Arthur?”

Jett guffawed.

“Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and just Ireland. You kind of told Scotland to fuck off, mate. It was beautiful.”

Blanching at Jett’s language and at the news that he had already made an enemy, Salvatore went quiet.

“Honestly I wouldn’t worry if I were you, though. He respects you if you talk back in the right way. Just…just don’t overdo it. He can be _mean_. Actually, he’s usually mean…”

“Do you two have brothers?”

It was Jett’s turn to beam.

“I have a little brother, and Mattie here’s a twin!” He gave Matthew a thump on the back which Matthew himself didn’t seem to appreciate.

“I have a twin brother and a little sister. Francis adopted me at first, but then I had to move to England’s house…and here I am. Jett’s only been English, though.”

“Do you miss them?”

Matthew looked over at Salvatore, posing him another question that had nothing to do with swords:

“What was your family like?”

He hesitated.

“My father died when I was a baby. My mother I remember a little…but not much. Mostly I have my big sister and my cousins. Sometimes my half brother, sometimes HER half brother.”

“You both have half brothers? How are they half brothers?”

“Our family is a blood family, not a…collected one. I am also her half brother. My sister shares a birth father with me, but a different mother. I share a birth mother with her intended, but she and him are not at all related by blood. Conversely, she shares a birth mother with Herakles, but they have different fathers, which means while she and him are half siblings, I am not related to him.”

Jett let out a low whistle while Matthew seemed to be working that information out in his head.

“Your part of the world seems to have mixed a lot.”

“Yes, it is one of its best features.” His chin took a bit of a prideful tilt. “Now do you two want to go outside and learn how to fight like men? I will clear the area of twigs if one of you finds some good practice swords.”

Matthew and Jett both burst out laughing.

“It’s raining, we can’t go outside.”

“”What do you mean it’s raining? It’s not…it’s not already past the harvest, is it?”

The two more experienced children exchanged looks.

“It rains here. Always. A clear day here means the world is about to end.”

All of Salvatore’s good mood dissipated, his serious face butting over with thought.

_He has taken away my ability to fight by keeping me here. He has taken me away from my dog, and hidden me from my family. He has taken away my proper Maltese clothes and instead wear English ones. He wishes to keep me from speaking Maltese; we have only been speaking English this entire time. And this man is also powerful enough to take away the…the sun? He took away the sun??_

“Salvatore?”

His grey eyes lit up as his conscious burst back into the present, the smile returning to his face. It was a bit less genuine now.

Salvatore hesitated to say the thought that popped into his mind, but said it anyway after a few moments of deliberation:

“Why is Arthur harvesting small nations like us?”

Jett snorted while Matthew looked like he was about to correct Salvatore’s phrasing.

“We’re colonies. We all benefit him somehow.”

Salvatore hesitated, his eyebrows lowering.

“How could I be…”

 _Limestone,_ rustled a voice in the back of his head. _Boundless quarries of limestone. Soft, sandy beaches. Pristine blue ocean in proximity to Southern powers. An excellent base in case of issues in Africa._

“Sorry, mate, he has a bit of a passion for acquiring new islands. I bet he physically carried you off, didn’t he? He did that to me, too. He turned my land into a bloody prison. Don’t know what he’ll do to you, but I think we all want to find out.”

“Did…did your countries all have their own cultures before he came?”

Matthew adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

“Yes. I don’t remember much of mine, though…I wish I did. I remembered better when I was with France, but now it’s like it’s all been completely wiped away.”

Jett nodded.

“I know I used to have something, but now it’s gone and I don’t think I’ll ever get it back.”

For the second time that day, Salvatore felt his eyes start to well up with tears.

“Will that happen to me, too? Will I forget everything?”

“We don’t know.”

While he seemingly brushed off this exchange and went off with Jett and Matthew to talk about swords and lizards, when he came back to his room he started to write to himself in Maltese:   
_Salvatore. Your name is Salvatore St. John._

That was his name, right? He felt like he was missing something.

_Your name is Salvatore St. John and you have a half sister and a half brother. Your sister is named Serafina. Your brother is called Lovino because your mother named him Lutfi but once she died, no one could pronounce Lutfi. Your sister loves him but doesn’t want to tell him that. You have a cousin named Antine Pecora, and he has thick glasses that you can’t see through. You have another cousin, Marcel, and he’s living with Francis right now. You never see him, but when you do he smells like salt and leather. Antine and Marcel are brothers. Antine misses Marcel a lot. And you have a dog! You have a dog who is named Pepe. You like to play fight with your swords and you like to fish and to trap animals. You can play the guitar and sing and you would more if you had the time. You can read Arabic and Hebrew because your mother taught you Arabic and you had to learn Hebrew after starting off for the Holy Land. You can’t…no, you won’t speak French and your sister and your tutor hate it. You can read Latin, but you don’t like Latin. You would have made Latin stop existing if you could._

He wondered if Pepe missed him. Wiping his face, he continued.

_Your father was Hannô Rhodanus and your mother was Fadila El-Bourak. Your mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. You have her eyes._

He hesitated before adding something his sister said to him all the time:

_You are a prince._

Days, weeks, and months passed and every night, he would read that letter to himself. He kept it folded up in his shirtsleeve, and made a second copy to hide in his pillowcase. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed; it seemed like all the clocks were covered up and he couldn’t find a calendar anywhere. He started following the time by watching the moon through his window.

Before he knew it, he had begun to grow. It was a miracle; after so long staying a child, he thought he would never grow up. The baby fat he’d kept for so long became to melt into muscle and tendon, his shoulders widening a bit and his voice going from that soft tenor to booming and cracking like an oncoming tempest. He tried to think of his male relatives that had gone through the process; he was hoping he might figure out what his voice would sound like through them, but he realized quickly that he had forgotten what their voices sounded like.

When he had left his sister, she was only just beginning this process. He could only tell by the way her face had started to redden and swell a few days before he had been taken away. He wondered if she was faring better than he was. He wondered if she had forgotten all about him.

Matthew’s evil twin was severely at odds with Arthur at this point, so to keep Matthew from being too distressed about it Salvatore found a guitar in the back of a wardrobe and began to teach him how to play.

“What kind of songs do you sing?”

The Maltese boy smiled, remembering this in particular from home.

“We don’t sing. We argue at each other to music. It’s called a _ghana_.”

“An aah-na?”

“Yes.”

“What does that sound like?”

He began to strum a few chords, clearing his throat.

“I’ll pretend to be someone we both know. You be that…boy you know and I don’t, eh?”

Matthew nodded, and the Maltese boy began to sing:

_“My heart is a shambles_

_But this is a preamble_

_Your lack of caring_

_Makes me more daring”_

He played an interlude.

“See? You respond, and make it rhyme. You have…three more bars to figure it out.”

“What?!”

“Go!”

“Uh—“

_“Your impetuosity_

_Strengthens my animosity_

_You do no favors_

_In manipulative labor”_

Salvatore kept strumming along, thinking of a response.

“That was really good, Matthew!”

“ _I kept my tea in the larder,_

_And you threw it in the harbor._

_You knew your actions meant war,_

_But all I wanted was more.”_

_“Why can’t I just be free?_

_There’s no more you and me._

_I have my own right to be_

_Both the dog and the biting flea.”_

_“Yet you keep open your trade routes,_

_You insufferable Boy Scout,_

_When you finally keep your mouth shut,_

_I’ll pull my head out my butt.”_

Matthew hissed between his teeth, trying to not laugh.

_“Taxation without representation_

_Across the board towards my nation_

_Can you understand my motives?_

_I burn like a candle in a votive.”_

_“We know I want you cuz I’m lonely,_

_And that I’m really just a phony_

_I steal small children and my cronies_

_Act like it’s a bunch of bologna.”_

“Yikes, Salvatore. Why so bitter?”

The interlude was up, and it was time for Matthew to sing:

_“Sorry I’m so emotionally stunted,_

_All my friends feel rather shunted_

_I love myself so much others feel jilted,_

_Since conversations not about me feel stilted.”_

Salvatore choked a bit at Matthew’s verse, letting out a wheezing laugh. While a proper _ghana_ was usually involving the two people talking as themselves, this was a good cathartic moment for both of them. This went on and became more and more biting for another seven minutes, at which point Salvatore had to stop because his fingers had become completely numb.

“Matthew, you no longer have the right to call me bitter, especially after everything you just said.”

“Don’t let others know my deep dark secret.”

“If I told people how you have no soul, they’d never believe me. Your secret is safe.”


	5. Chapter 5

_“Your Majesty, I’m begging you. They are too young to marry; it will hurt their chances of staying together if we join them prematurely. This would have been an acceptable track about a century ago—“_

_“I did not say they had to marry, Antonio. They are betrothed; when the girl has her first cycle, she will marry him and they will produce a child.”_

_“We don’t know that for certain—“_

_“Have you looked at their countries, Antonio? Don’t be stupid. Acres upon acres of farmland are at their disposal. All of it is fertile for any crop. She will give him a child. And that child will replace both of them. And just like you have done so well with the father, you will raise that baby in the interests of the Bourbon crown.”_

_“But—“_

_“This is not negotiable. There is a war on, in case you have not noticed.”_

_Neither the king nor the Spaniard himself noticed the Sardinian teenager leaning against the wall, listening to the entire exchange with an utterly unreadable expression._

Serafina had been moved into higher surveillance—into the castle with the other Spanish territories—after she had punched the United Kingdom in the face. It was only fair; she knew it had been coming. She begrudgingly admitted that she preferred it to the strenuous way she lived when out by the port with her little brother. She had managed to negotiate that after some-odd period of good behavior, she would be allowed back there, if not just because she needed to work.

She was hiding from the court that her body was changing; she bound her chest, slouched to hide that she had gotten taller, and spoke in a high falsetto to hide the husky tone her voice was taking on. She was physically about sixteen now and pretending to be barely thirteen. It was easier to hide her period when she lived on her own; now, she would keep the rolls of bloody bandages in a basket under her bed and burn them at the end of the day.

“Nina—“

She plunged the basket under her bed.

“Antine?”

“You can’t hide that forever, if not just for the smell.”

She blushed.

“I can’t help anything about it…I don’t want them to know. You know what happens to people like us who…who can have babies.”

“Yes, I do. You know what they want from you, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. Why do you think I haven’t told them yet?”

“I don’t know, maybe pre-nup jitters? Cold feet?”

“I…it’s nothing personal. I just wish it didn’t have to be him.”

“That sounds pretty personal.”

“That came out wrong.”

“I mean, is there anyone viable who you’d actually marry instead? Who would there be? Me? Marcel? Oh, wait. I know whom they’d have you marry. Francis.”

She shuddered.

“I mean, whether or not Francis actually goes _through with it_ would be a different story. At least with Lovino, Lovino actually wants to marry you in his own roundabout way. But yeah, it’s him or Francis again.”

“I never married him, but I would never get in an arrangement with him again if I could help it...especially after what he and Spain did to Arabia.”

“You and Francis had a good run.”

“It was either very good or very bad, and we were too young and stupid to know what any of it all meant.”

“So you publicly humiliated him and declared war on him?”

“It made sense at the time.”

“Speaking of your impeccable logic, have you…have you heard anything about Salvatore since your last…uh, _encounter_ with Arthur?”

“No,” she muttered, looking down at her bare feet. “They’re withholding things because I’m sure they know I’d personally go to look for him if I knew he was.”

“That was fucking stupid of you to do. You know that, right?”

“What was? You need to be more specific.”

“Punching him.”

“I had to.”

“Also, calling him a shepherd’s bastard. That was an insult to sheep everywhere.”

Serafina’s lips turned up into a smile.

“But you didn’t have to hit him. Seriously. We grew up together and I don’t know where your self-destructive tendencies end and your actual personality begins.”

“I don’t really know either, so at least you’re not alone there.”

He laughed, a confusing expression when his eyes were obscured.

“Pepe wouldn’t come with me, did you know that? That dog sits at the pier Arthur’s boat left from. He waits. He’s been waiting. I got someone to make sure Pepe gets food while I’m here, but…Pepe’s still waiting for him. It’s been nearly a year, Antine. They’re going to want me to stop grieving and move on soon, but I just want to sit with Pepe and wait by the water for him to come back.”

“You didn’t feel this way when you were separated from Herakles, did you?”

“No, but...I’m used to being the one that leaves. I ran away from Ashtoreth when you all were in the boat to stay with dad and Malta. And then after Helena was murdered. I tried to take Herakles with me and he decided to stay instead of run. No idea why he did that. But there was always a definitive “I’m going this way and you’re going that way” moment. But…Salvatore was _stolen._ I need him back just so I can know I didn’t fail as a sibling. Just…I keep thinking of when he got taken away and how I should have looked more, should have called back to him more? I don’t know…”

“You’ve definitely heard this already from Antonio, but you’re not the only one to have…lost a sibling. Shit happens. Arthur was going to take him away no matter what. Maybe be happy that he was spirited away in the least traumatic way possible.”

“…you’re right. I’m sorry. Have you heard anything from Marcel?”

“He’s off the map now that he’s…” Antine hesitated. It was common knowledge amongst the nations that Marcel had been taken on as Napoleon’s advisor instead of Francis, but no one liked to acknowledge it out loud. “He doesn’t have time for some shepherd island in the Mediterranean.”

“Maybe you’ll marry some powerful mainland state and be a stronghold someday,” she parroted, mimicking the King’s words to her about her engagement.

Antine shrugged. “Be like you? Spit out some nice Roman babies?”

“Ugh. Please.” She wouldn’t have minded marrying and having children; it was just that someone was now telling her that she had to.

“Oh, what about marrying that former duchy in Germany that’s picking up every kind of steam? The one that took Polish territory a couple years back, with that "enlightened monarch". In my defense, I’ve never actually looked at him and have no idea if he’s your type.”

“Too far away and too cold. I’ve never seen his actual face but I’ve seen him write and he’s left-handed. I can’t marry another left-handed person. Being left-handed is my job in the relationship. Also, he squarely got his ass kicked recently by Marcel and...Marcel's boss. I can't marry someone who loses to _Marcel_ of all people. Even I have standards.”

“I’m fucking with you.”

“I can never tell, especially with those stupid glasses of yours.”

He grinned toothily, another expression made uncanny by his hidden eyes.

“That’s the point, Nina. Anyway, I thought I’d stop in to tell you you’re an idiot. Now I have a meeting to go to.”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

The Sardinian left the room, leaving the door open and leaving Serafina alone with her thoughts.

It was not long before she had another visitor.

“So…we’re to share a room in two weeks’ time.”

“That’s not happening.”

Lovino produced a decree from a pocket in his cloak that had been meticulously and irritatedly sewed in by the girl in question. It had the Crown’s stamp and everything.

“You’re not supposed to share a bed until you get married. And we’re not getting married until I have my period.”

He produced another decree from his pocket that stated that Serafina Pavone was to submit to Royal Inspection.

“The hell are they inspecting?”

Lovino didn’t make eye contact.

“Nina, they know you’re hiding something. You know, if you don’t want to go through with this it would be easier if you just told me? I don’t think it’s going to be nearly as big of a deal as you’re making it out to be. It’s political.”

“Both of my parents got into political marriages and both times it ended up resulting in them dying. Violently.”

“I mean, both my parents died because they were too old, stretched thin, and stepping on the wrong feet. Does that mean I should learn from them and know my limits? Yes. Does that mean that I should never exert myself? No.”

“But you don’t exert yourself. You’ve barely left the peninsula.”

“I…okay, fuck off, you’re missing my point.”

“But marriage between nations is a total farce,” she huffed, sitting down at her vanity and fumbling with a hairbrush. “I hate to say it, but the Bourbons are crumbling. We're looking at chaos in a matter of a few decades. We’re just going to get divorced—“

“ _Eshmouniaton.”_

Her eyes shot wide open, not having heard him use that name for her in a very long time. He vaguely gestured at himself, cheeks darkening slightly.

“All I’m saying is, uh…you could do worse. And maybe this could be a good thing? And we’re not our parents. Maybe you won’t die. Maybe you’ll only get like…grievously injured.”

She finally started to laugh.

“They tell me to kiss you and a chandelier falls on my head, killing me instantly.”

“You make it to the reception only to choke and die on a meatball.”

“I cut the wedding cake but I get confused and stab myself.”

“I take you for the first dance. You get so excited about the music that you have a heart attack and die before the dance even starts.”

“They’re going to make us dance Spanish. I know they will.”

“Yes. Also eat Spanish, speak Spanish, kiss in Spanish, and breathe in Spanish.”

“How do you breathe in Spanish?”

“Slowly, but with great honor, so no one cares if you come in last.”

She snorted, grabbing her hairbrush to try and untangle her ink-blot of curls before any Spanish royalty saw her looking like this.

“Is there any reason they let you come in here without a chaperone?”

“I…honestly I didn’t tell them I was coming to visit you today; they just gave me that notice because they knew we see each other a lot.”

Her hands were shaking; she wasn’t succeeding with her efforts.

“Can I…can I help you with that?”

“I mean, do you actually want to brush my hair?”

“Yes?”

She handed him the brush and a tiny vial of oil, acting like it was her doing him a favor instead of the other way around.

“The oil helps straighten it out. Typically that’s what they want me to do here.”

“What if I don’t want it to be straightened out?”

She looked up at him, utterly perplexed. He shrugged, holding the brush loosely in one hand.

“I’ve always liked your hair curlier.”

“Go for it, I’m not impressing anyone but you anymore. I’m just surprised.”

He started, placing a firm, warm hand on the base of her neck to brace her for the brush.

“Have you ever considered just…cutting it all off?”

“No, but I wish I could have it all up in a ton of small braids like when I was smaller. My aunt used to do it for me. If I had known…”

“Yeah.”

“Do you miss her?”

“Who? Ashtoreth? I never really met her. Grandpa Rome didn't talk about her much. Antonio barely remembers her either--”

“No, your mom.”

He stopped for a moment, and then resumed brushing while he talked.

“Of course I do. I was her first son, so she was really…I don’t know, she was one of the first people I remember never doubting that she loved me. Rome never did that for me. And I miss how she smelled, too. ”

“You remember how your mom smelled?”

“You _don’t_ remember how your mom smelled?”

“My mom didn’t quite...bond with me the way yours did, remember? I do remember my dad’s smell, though. Come to think of it though, my mom used a pretty generic scent. But if asked, I could pick out my dad’s smell from a lineup.”

“What, like a dog?”

“Yeah, like a…” _A dog. Dogs could pick up scents. Dogs. The answer was dogs. Pepe knew what Salvatore smelled like. How had she not thought of that before? Oh, right. She was an idiot._

“Amatus Ambrosius?”

“Yes?” he replied, grinning at the use of his childhood name. She turned around with the brush stuck in her hair, grabbed him by the collar and kissed him on the mouth.

“You are a genius amongst men and I owe you the universe.”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

She got up and left with her hair half brushed and with a breathless look on her face. The mainlander sat on her bed for a moment, red and confused, before getting up to follow her.

“Where are you going?”

“To find my brother!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was a port city. Large ships would dock to replenish supplies. Fishing boats would scurry through, finding piers to tie themselves to and quickly remove their wares from the sun. Freighters would come from Sicily, from Naples, from Venice, from Athens and from Gibraltar carrying things like wheat, oranges, wax, fine Murano glass, and barrels of wine. Boats would arrive from Egypt, Tunisia, India, Libya and Lampedusa with dates, pistachios, spices that made the strongest of men breathe fire, and kegs of honey.

Packet-ships from London were coming in with increasing frequency, spitting out white-faced foreigners amongst the browner natives with nary a whisper of “good luck” from the creaking wooden hull. Every now and then, a steamer would manage to take up eight or so of the docks and drown every other boat out like a herd of elephants at a watering hole. English warships would come in after expeditions to the Far East and to Africa; they would spit out red-faced or splotchy-skinned foreigners as opposed to the china dolls off the packet-ships.

These splotchy soldiers spoke of the situation in Africa now that Napoleon had decided to branch not just out of his country, but out of the continent. He had been soundly beaten back to Europe, but no one knew if it would stay that way. Each man had a story about the Battle of the Nile that no one besides them could possibly verify; since the battle had been over three years ago now, verifying such feats was nigh impossible. Each tavern by the docks was full of stories in every language, every child running back and forth between the ships and the shops and the bars was barefoot. In short, the port had never been livelier.

He was waiting.

His feet were numb from sitting and he knew that he almost certainly had splinters. The pads of his feet had become sore from lack of use. The sun bore down on his vulnerable back like a stone. He didn’t know how long he had been here; he had taken many meals at this very spot and barely even left for anything else. An old woman would come out and leave him meat scraps from her kitchen, which he would always promptly devour. He stared unblinkingly at the horizon, waiting for those white sails to come back over it.

He had called to his master’s kin when he saw it happen, but no one had come to his aid. He had run so fast…his legs were too short and he hadn’t been able to get on the boat in time. He still remembered seeing his master slung over the strange man’s shoulder, unaware of what was happening to him. He didn’t know why they took his master away. All he knew was that he missed him.

He remembered the first day that he left without him. His master had bent down on his scraped, knoblike knees and told him to stay. His master told him he would be back. And he was right; his master was always going to come back. He just had to be good. He had to stay. And if he stayed long enough, maybe his master would come back faster.

He felt his eyes start to close. Would his master forgive him for going to sleep? He thought he smelled him for a moment: tree bark, iron, honey. But it was only one of the smells of the port.

Pepe drifted off and dreamed of the little boy that loved him so.

About five minutes after he closed his eyes, he heard the unmistakable noise of  __bare, callused feet hitting the pier's wood planks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Eshmouniaton would be the first name she received from her father, Carthage (Punic. It means "Eshmoun has given"'; Eshmoun was the Canaanite god of healing and rebirth.). Using old names like that would be a serious sign of intimacy, and every nation has that First Name that they only use with their closest friends,family and lovers. 
> 
> Amatus Ambrosius would have been what Lovino was given as a name by his father; per an earlier chapter, the name Lutfi (meaning kind or gentle) came from his mother, Arabia, and is where he gets his current (and weird and definitely not Italian) name. However, I see his Roman name as having initially been Amlethus Ambrosius (eternally dull) but Serafina often "forgets" how to say his name and says Amatus Ambrosius (eternally loved)! Romano doesn't correct her.


	6. Chapter 6

The year was 1814. It was the thirtieth of May. Francis was sitting at a war room table, pale and unsmiling. A scared, dark haired teenager no older than fifteen sat next to him. Francis’s eyes were focused on tracing the grain of the table’s wood. The Corsican sitting next to him kept vibrant green eyes focused on the window.

“Francis?”

“Marcel?”

“How do you think I will be punished?”

Blue eyes met green ones. The Corsican’s straight black hair was tied back in a ponytail, not much different than the one Francis himself was sporting.

“Francis?”

“Without impunity.”

“It was my first time, sir. I was…overzealous.”

“And you managed to step on every European power’s toes. Including mine, by the way. I was a Royalist, but I will be losing much. You…I do not know what they will do to you.”

In all his time as an underling to Francis, Marcel had never seen him this upset. Quiet, contained rage seemed to seep out of his pores.

“They can smell fear, you know. Especially on a young thing like you.”

“ _Scusatemi?”_

I would suggest wearing more cologne next time, especially if you intend to conquer again. As an empire, you would sit in many meetings like this.”

This was Marcel’s first time personally sitting on the losing end of a treaty. He had a feeling it would not be the last.

The doors opened, and seven other nations walked into the room. Arthur came first, who Marcel knew from the sea. Roderich Edelstein second, whom Marcel was familiar with but had never spoken to. The third was the granite-slab of a man Marcel assumed to be Ivan Braginsky. Another even taller man came in behind Ivan, who the Corsican knew to be the Swede. These four men only made eye contact with Francis. One short blond man made eye contact with no one and sat down without greeting any of the men at the table.

Marcel’s older brother, Antine Pecora, representative for the Kingdom of Piedmont, came in behind the shortest blond man. Marcel searched for any kind of merciful expression on Antine’s face. There was none. Adão Cardozo, Marcel’s younger half-brother and the representative of Portugal, came in behind Antine. Adão did not make eye contact with Marcel, only murmuring a greeting to Arthur before sitting next to him.

The last person to come in was the representative of Prussia. Marcel now knew that his name was Gilbert Bielschmidt. He had not learned that at Jena or Austerlitz; all he knew was that he had deeply humiliated Gilbert on both occasions. And Gilbert was not the sort to forgive such a transgression.

Gilbert was the only one who looked Marcel directly in the eye. He did not break eye contact with Marcel. In fact, Gilbert was smiling. Gilbert sat down next to Antine, not sparing the Sardinian a greeting. Instead, Gilbert immediately asked Marcel for his name.

“I am Marcel Menton, sir, representative of Corsica.”

Marcel wondered if this was what an antelope felt when looking into the eyes of a lion.

Arthur Kirkland cleared his throat, reading off from several documents.

“We are here today to clarify the agreements between our various nations and the nation of France after the truly _cutting_ blow experienced by the French in losing this long, drawn-out and incredibly tedious war. We are also here to discuss certain other arrangements.”

“The treaties between France and the Sixth Coalition, comprised of the following nations: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Russia, Austria, and Prussia…and with further support from Switzerland, Piedmont, Portugal and Sweden, consists of the following terms.”

“First term: There shall be from this day forward perpetual peace and friendship between his Britannic majesty and his allies on the one part, and his majesty the King of France and Navarre on the other, their heirs and successors, their dominions and subjects respectively.”

Everyone in the room knew that such a statement was merely a formality; they would almost all certainly be in this room again within a year’s time.

“Related to the first term, France is to recognize the Bourbon Crown and must recognize the Bourbon heir to the French monarchy, King Louis the Eighteenth, as the rightful ruler of France.”

“Done.”

“As part of the agreement…France will be reduced back to its original borders, previously established in the year of Our Lord one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-two. France will lose all acquisitions made after the aforementioned date. France is required to formally relinquish Tobago, St. Lucia, Seychelles and Mauritius to English control. As an act of good faith, Sweden will return Guadeloupe to the French crown, as the territory…was wrongfully ceded to Sweden by the English.”

Berwald looked at Arthur pointedly. Arthur did not look back at him.

“The powers shall all recognize the neutrality of Switzerland.”

A resounding agreement came from each man at the table, enough that Marcel himself found the word coming from his own lips.

“The ancient borders of Germany, Belgium and Italy are to be respected by the French.”

“Done.”

“Holland’s territory is to be increased.”

“Done.”

Arthur turned the page, looking up to see a familiar pair of glasses and Marcel’s green eyes, knowing damn well what company he was in, before saying the following anyway:

“The island of Malta and its dependencies shall belong in full right and sovereignty to his Britannic majesty.”

Marcel saw Antine flinch, choking on his coffee before coughing and trying to regain his composure. Malta had never been a Piedmontese territory; there was nothing Antine could do. Marcel wondered if Salvatore had been requested to come to this meeting. Marcel assumed not. Francis glanced at Marcel, then at the coughing, sweating Piedmontese man across from them. And then back at Arthur, who knew there was only one thing Francis could say:

“I hereby cede Malta to the British Crown.”

Antine loosened his cravat and downed what was left of his coffee. The rest of the terms were not disputed.

“That’s…everything on the Treaty. ”

“What’s to happen to him?” asked Gilbert, nodding to Marcel. “He’s the only one here who didn’t fight for the Crown.”

Francis took another glance at Marcel before speaking in a voice thick with either anger or tears. Marcel was not sure which.

“He is to be banished to Elba as well. Marcel’s lands will be managed by me indefinitely.”

Marcel forgot how to breathe, realizing why there were guards more on his side of the room than those of the Sixth. He was initially grabbed, but then found himself walking to his demise of his own free will. Knowing himself damned regardless, he turned around and began to walk backwards out of the room. He took a deep breath to shout:

“Know all of you were subjugated by a boy who has yet to grow a beard. My regards to you all! _Unn hè pè tutti mangiare mmerda e mori!_ ”

The doors shut, letting the Corsican’s last words bounce about the treaty room.

**********************************  
The year was 1816. Salvatore had not seen his sister or any of his family in over fifteen years. The letter he wrote to himself all those years ago had become worn out to almost a pulp; the paper had become stained with the oil from his growing hands. The words on the paper, now beaten into it from time and from his thumbs running across the swells of ink, had become as firmly imprinted into his mind as an epitaph on a tombstone.

He had not worn a Maltese article of clothing in fifteen years. His skin had become grayish after so long indoors, almost matching how overcast the sky was in his current lodgings. He could feel himself start to waste away.

He had come here when he was physically about nine years old. Now he was more like thirteen.

He did not hate the English. But he was Maltese. It was time he start acting like it again.

“Arthur?”

“Mm.”

“I think it is time I go home.”

Arthur stamped another document, not making eye contact with him.

“What gave you that idea?”

“It has been fifteen years, sir. I am away from my people…they need me. And I am not where I should be.”

“You are a territory of the British Empire. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.” Arthur still had yet to actually make eye contact with Salvatore, who mistook this as a sign of vulnerability on Arthur’s part. Salvatore did something he had seen his cousin do and started to tilt up his chin, looking down at Arthur with an attempt at a steely gaze.

“A nation must be with its people. Depriving an entire group of people of their nation is…”

Arthur finally looked up at him.

“My job?”

Salvatore hesitated.

“Excuse me?”

“You are a territory of the British Empire. You are not a nation, you are a colony. You ceased to be a protectorate two years ago, Salvatore. You were ceded to me by the French after we won the war. You have no right to be making demands of me when I am now your legal guardian and own your lands.”

“You let Canada live alone now.”

“Canada has been my territory much longer than you have. He is also significantly better behaved than you.”

“And also Australia.”

“Australia is also an older colony than you, Salvatore. This is out of the question. You are here to help other colonies adapt to Eng—“

“Other colonies?”

“Hong Kong will be joining eventually.”

He’s not going to stop. He will continue until he has the world.

Salvatore finally understood why his sister hated him so much.

“Why do you do this, Arthur?”

“Do what, precisely?”

“Steal children.”

Arthur brushed an eyelash out of his eye with the tip of his finger.

“I don’t steal anything. Or anyone.”

Salvatore couldn’t help himself.

“You stole me, sir. Right out of my sister’s orchard, while she was working to provide for me. Did you steal this territory too? Is he coming of his own free will?”

“His guardian is not suited to be raising him—“

“The same way my sister was not suited to raise me, sir? You have said she was irresponsible because she had little money. Does this Hong Kong child have a similar standpoint? Are you going to steal away the children of poor people and leave rocks in their beds, like the fair folk?”

“Out of my sight, boy.”

“Are you—“

“Out. Of. My. Sight.”

The Maltese boy wheeled around to leave the room, only to walk into the wall in his indignation.

“Door’s that way,” the Englishman breathed, with a slight smile on his face.

The door slammed, rattling the windows. So what if he has to create the bad environment that he was saving the younger Wang from? He was saving him, after all. He could just get his guardian addicted to drugs and leave the younger boy to die. He could keep going in and out of Wang Yao’s house, make transactions that Wang would never remember in his opium induced stupor, and leave without paying. That wouldn’t be theft necessarily, just artful forgetfulness. It was nothing serious at all. No. Nothing serious at all.

Salvatore knew he had to run.

He couldn’t be like America; he was too small, outgunned, and incapable of defending himself. He was also weakened; he hadn’t been able to pick a sword up in over a decade. So he couldn’t fight his way out of the castle. He would have to do something else.

It wasn’t like the castle was heavily guarded; it was more that Arthur knew things. It was like he had some invisible entities posted at each door, each stairwell, that told him the goings-on of the house. You could not get away with a single thing without him knowing it.

And he knew it wasn’t that Arthur had personally seen it happen, because if Arthur had ever told Salvatore to stop stealing bacon from the larder and Salvatore asked him how he knew, Arthur would just say “They told me”, or “They let me know”. Who was letting him know? Was it the suits of armor in the halls? The light fixtures? The waitstaff? Who?

Salvatore took his leisure time to really start scoping out the castle. He took to taking teacakes and stuffing them into his pockets. He would leave crumbs in places about the castle and see if Arthur ever told him to stop. The only place he seemed to not have a real control over was the northernmost part of the castle, where Alasdair tended to be.

Salvatore then figured he might just…ask a few questions.

“Caoimhean?”

“Ah?”

“How does Arthur know when I’m about elsewhere?”

“What do ye mean?”

“You know…when I’m meddling about and Arthur will tell me to stop, but he’s all the way across the corridor and has no way of seeing?”

“The fairies.”

“What?”

“You know the stories I’ve told you? About fair folk leaving rocks and taking babies, all that? Why ye mustn’t cut tha’ tree down over by the pond?”

“Yes?”

“That’s fairies. They’re real. They’re all about the castle and they do his biddin’. Mine too.”

Salvatore’s thickening eyebrows furrowed.

“That cannot be right.”

“I’m telling ye.”

“Alright then…assuming that fairies are real, and they do his bidding…how do I get them to do my bidding?”

Caoimhean’s eyes snapped up to look at the young Maltese boy.

“Ye can’t make a fae do your bidding. They do as they damn well please. They like us because we’ve made ourselves likeable. They’re a bit afraid of you because of that big silver cross you wear on your neck and everything ye own smells like iron. Ye got manners and a personality milder and sweeter than a fuckin’ dewdrop, so they do like that about ye. Clean up your room proper. Put a bowl o’ fresh water out by some milk, bread, and cheese. That’ll do it.”

“Thank you, Caoimhean.”

“I don’t bloody want to know why ye’re asking me all this and if you tell Arthur I told ye, I’ll gut ye like a pig.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and one more thing.”

“Mm?”

“Salvatore, do not thank them for anything.”

“What do you mean?”

“If a faerie does ye a favor. Never say thank you. Be your polite, prinky-dinky self every other way. But if a faerie does end up doing something for ye, you mustn’t say thank you.”

“What if I want them to not see me?”

“T’ain’t possible. They’ll see you, but if you don’t want them to tell that they’ve seen you…well…ye can always use iron to keep them from touching you, at least.”

Salvatore looked down at the thick iron of his belt and boot buckles.

“Anything else?”

“Bread and salt, paìsti. Now get out before I spill any more of my secrets to ye.”

Salvatore scurried out of the room before Caoimhean decided to change his mind (as he often did) about being friendly.

No proper Maltese man leaves his house without a dagger strapped to his hip. Even though they were not Maltese, he struggled to remember a moment where his family members did not have knives on their person, strapped onto waists, legs, hips, or hanging casually off of a belt. It was one of the things that greatly perplexed him about English society. How do you peel fruit without a knife? Do you peel it with your fingers? Humans were made to use tools, for God’s sake, not our fingers! He digressed.

The fancy hunting knife Arthur had hung over the fireplace suited Salvatore’s needs well.

Big Ben chimed twice when Salvatore left out his offering of bread, milk, water and cheese, strapped the iron hunting knife to his thigh, prominently displayed the cross over his shirt, and moved lightly through the darkened hallway to the northernmost part of the castle.

The window had a beautiful lattice below it, allowing a bush of roses to climb up and cover the stucco of the castle’s walls. Salvatore would have been admiring the flowers more if he had not been in such a hurry to ruin them. Lowering himself out the window and onto the lattice, he managed to get down about three quarters of the way before misplacing a foot and falling a good 20 meters directly into brambles.

He laid low for two minutes, hoping that no one had awoken from the sound of him falling. He lifted his head only to look directly into a pair of blue-green eyes. Alasdair.

“And where do ye think ye’re going?”

What do I say that he will actually believe?

“I’m off to discover the female form.”

“What?”

Oh, hell.

“I’m off to get laid, sir. For the first time.”

Alasdair’s eyebrows shot up.

“Well, noo. Our own Sir Galahad off tae break his knightly vows, then? Ye see something new every day, boy, and tonight it's cunt. See to it, lad.”

Salvatore got himself out of the brambles and trotted briskly out of sight and off into London itself. He was a free man!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:  
> Scusatemi? - excuse me
> 
> Unn hè pè tutti mangiare mmerda e mori! - I hope you all eat shit and die! (Classy, Marcel.) 
> 
> Paìsti - boy


	7. Chapter 7

Salvatore made it a good twenty minutes away from the castle itself before he realized that what he had done was incredibly stupid; he was running about in Arthur’s capital. Arthur would know damn well where he was; he was the representation of the land itself.

The land itself…wait a minute.

It was at about that moment that Salvatore did another stupid thing and launched himself directly into the River Thames. Arthur knew what was happening on land, but would he know what was happening on water?

Before Salvatore could really begin to swim, a pair of thick arms wrapped around his waist, lifting him onto a quickly moving boat.

“Are you daft, boy? This isn’t the place to go for a swim.”

“Where is this boat headed?”

“To the Channel, off to Calais.”

“May I pay my fare, sir?”

“Nae, lad. Boy as thick as ye would need that money later on. Keep it.”

That worked out well for him, given that he hadn’t a cent to his name at the moment.

“Shall I help you with anything, sir?”

“Stay out of my way, that’s the most help you can do. Go below deck and dry yourself off. Hopefully ye won’t smell like shit by the end of it.”

“Yes, sir. When will we reach Calais?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Dinnae mention it. If I didn’t pick ye up, it would probably be someone else…and it would not be worth the risk, what with you—“ he gestured awkwardly at Salvatore’s dark skin.

“Someone might think ye’d escaped an American.”

Salvatore held his tongue, but could not help but allow a smile to grace his face. The fisherman was not entirely wrong at all.

~~~

The sight of Calais was one that Salvatore never knew he would ever be excited to see.

He and his sister had been in Paris many times – it was expected of French territories to pay tribute at the capital once a year – but he had never seen much else of France.

He then realized that coming to France was a huge mistake. He had no doubt that Francis would turn him back over to Arthur; he would have no reason to ensure Salvatore’s safe passage. If anything, Francis would be compensated heavily for his aid with Salvatore’s reimprisonment.

It was then he realized that he was only at the border; Francis was one who preferred to present himself as a man of the metropolis. He would have no reason to be in Calais.

Salvatore tentatively thanked the fisherman and disembarked. He made it about three hundred meters before turning his head and looking directly into a pair of violet blue eyes.

Francis had an uncanny ability to appear whenever someone wanted to see him the very least. He knew this and relished in it.

“Fancy meeting you here, little _sauveur_. Or, I suppose you may have an English name now. My, how you’ve grown!”

Salvatore was too stunned to speak.

“I see the English have done you no favors in the clothing department. Did they send you with anything other than those clothes? That is truly unfortunate. Come with me, I can help you.” He gave the Maltese boy a conspiratorial wink.

“I…I am in a bit of a hurry, I do not think I can come all the way back to Paris.”

“Paris? Don’t be ridiculous. I have a house here. We can get you cleaned up and on your way.”

“Oh.”

“Have you been practicing your fencing?”

“At night. In my room, actually, and with an umbrella I stole. For saying to be the land of knights and Camelot…Arthur strangely seems to lack usable swords.”

“My dear boy, you will find that Arthur lacks many things,” Francis said, turning up at a small house and fishing for a key. “But what on Earth are you doing in Calais? It’s very fortunate that you ran into me; I am only here for two days before going back to Paris.”

“Well…”

They entered the small house. It was surprisingly modest; clean, well structured, tastefully decorated but not gaudy. Salvatore was genuinely surprised he would own something like this.

“Well? I’m listening.”

“I’ve…well, sir, I’ve escaped. I am on my way back to Malta. I do not belong in a palace; I belong with my people.”

Francis’s eyebrows raised for a split second before lowering again, glancing out the window before looking back at the smaller territory.

“That sounds awfully familiar... _mais je suppose que les chiens ne font pas des chats._ Anyhow, make yourself comfortable; I imagine you do not intend to stay long?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, please clean yourself up. More for my sake than yours.”

The teenager obediently trotted up the stairs to wash up and change his clothes. That dive in the River Thames had not done the boy any favors in the smell department, and his white flannel shirt had been corrupted into the color of a tea-stain from its brief contact with the filthy river water.

Francis himself admitted that he had missed him. He supposed it was more because his other territories were either now English or living far away, and the fact that the young Maltese boy had appeared meant he had someone to boss around for a few hours. And as for Corsica…well, they weren’t currently on speaking terms. Marcel just needed to cool off for a while; he was probably hiding in a cave or lighting some old driftwood on fire somewhere. Without Napoleon, he was not much to be reckoned with: still just a boy. He was a smart, very capable boy, yes, but still just a boy.

Salvatore came down in a fresh linen shirt and trousers, smelling significantly better. Francis was sitting at the kitchen table, delicately opening his smoking set and arranging its contents in front of him. Salvatore sat across from him, gingerly hanging his knife on the arm of his chair.

“Have you ever smoked tobacco?”

“No, sir.”

“Don’t ever start. I have a feeling it will prove to be unhealthy for both my body and my wallet.”

“Your wallet, sir?”

Francis looked up at him briefly before looking back at the ivory bowl of his pipe.

“I currently have three of these, each of varying quality. I imagine that I will only accumulate more of them, especially while being in Paris and keeping…civilized company.”

A knock came at the door. Three firm knocks within rapid succession. Both the English territory and the Frenchman knew exactly who that was based entirely on the precision of the knocking alone.

“I suggest you get into the closet.” Francis voiced while barely moving his lips.

“What?”

“The closet. You’ll fit.”

Salvatore silently stalked to the closet and closed himself amongst the furs and old swords as Francis moved quickly to answer the door. The overwhelming smell of talc powder and Darjeeling immediately hit his nostrils

“Good afternoon!

“I seem to have misplaced a territory,”

“Oh?”

“One that I got from you about two years ago.”

“Which one? Was it one of the many times you fucked me on a treaty table in the past few years?”

Arthur exhaled loudly through his nostrils.

“Yes.”

“Again, which one?”

“A _darling_ little boy from the Mediterranean.”

Salvatore could hear the smile in Francis’s voice

“Did you just call him darling?”

“Shut up. Is he here?”

Francis would tell you that he had never told a lie in his life. Everyone who knew him well enough would say he was lying right at that instant, and would do it again if it served his interests.

“No.”

Salvatore reached down to grab for the hunting knife only to realize that he had, in fact, left it in the kitchen. The kitchen, of course, because this was how Salvatore’s luck was working out, was just out of range of Arthur’s vision. Arthur, however, would only need to come into the house a little further to see the telltale knife hanging on the kitchen chair.

“Come now, he would have had to pass through Calais. And you’re here yourself, his previous…how should I put this…”

“Please, for the love of God, don’t say owner.”

“Guardian.”

“ _Tant mieux.”_

“But you’re here, and he’s not? Are you sure you haven’t seen him?”

“Positive, _cheri._ ”

“Assuming I believe you—“ Arthur started to walk into the house, only for Francis to brace his arms on the doorframe. “Let me in.”

“By all means~” Francis turned, letting Arthur come in. “See? No Maltese anything here.”

“I’m going upstairs.”

“With those disgusting boots? I don’t think so. The floors were just cleaned.”

Salvatore began to nudge his way out of the closet, desperate to breathe. Realizing what this might mean if he was to be spotted, he grasped at one of the swords bundled in the back of the enclosure.

“--okay, fine. Fine, I’m going to trust you and assume he’s not here. But I’m coming back tomorrow. And you’re going to tell me if he shows up.”

“Yes, of course!”

There was a pause.

“Francis, I feel like you’re hiding something.”

“Me? Hide something from you? Not likely.”

The door slammed. Arthur’s footsteps retreated, slowly growing quieter and quieter.

“Come out, _sauveur._ ”

Salvatore’s closely-cropped head peered out of the closet.

“You’ll want to go before he shows up again. He’s headed to a tavern to drink himself stupid right now, so he won’t be looking for you. Head north; he will be looking for you in the south. Bypass Portugal as much as you can; your best bet is to go through the North Sea and down the Rhine. He’ll be looking for you in Calais. Get yourself a horse and head to Nord.”

“Nord? In general or—“

“It’s a small town. They have a port and you can move up from there.”

“Francis?”

“ _Oui?”_

“Why are you doing all of this for me?”

“Because I enjoy any moment where I can mildly inconvenience Arthur Kirkland, something that many other people on the Continent can agree upon. That will benefit you on your journey more than you will ever realize. Where did you get the sword?”

“It’s…” He looked down. It was beautiful, and he was shocked that it seemed to have not seen the light of day in decades. “It was in the back of your closet.”

“Keep it. I’ve placed a few _livres_ into your knapsack. That should be able to pay for the horse. After you leave France, though…I am of no help. Good luck.”

He climbed out the back window, strapping the knife and the sword to his belt and slinging the knapsack over his shoulder.

"Thank you, sir."

"Anytime."

“And Salvatore?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Send Spain and your sister my regards.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:   
> Sauveur - "savior", it's the literal translation of Salvatore's name into French.   
> Mais je suppose que les chiens ne font pas des chats - literally "But I suppose dogs don't make cats"; it's similar to the English expression "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." He is referring to how Salvatore's stubbornness is very similar to that of his older sister's!   
> Tant mieux - very good, all the better.   
> Cheri - darling.  
> Livres - French currency at the time!


	8. Chapter 8

The year was 1816. The two territories had always been referred to as such, but the official unification of the kingdom of Naples and the island of Sicily – The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies -- was now one year old.

One year ago now, the two had come into a small room with Antonio, the King and a priest. They had signed their names on a document and became husband and wife. It had taken fourteen years for this to finally happen; what with the Sicilian having hidden her cycle from the court for so long. Romano had not told any of them that he had snuck divorce forms into the Sicilian’s desk, just in case she were to ever change her mind.

Serafina, dizzy from hours of fretting and contemplation, had needed her new husband to hold her up with one arm as they walked outside to be met by their people. Anything the Spaniards had called out to them from the shelter of the royal chamber was drowned out by the sound of applause, clapping, and whistling.

 _“Do you think we’re doing the right thing?”_ she remembered whispering in his ear.

 _“There’s only one way to find out,”_ he had whispered back.

The initial contrast between the two nations was perhaps most underscored here: the young Neapolitan man with a gilded ceremonial sword at his hip and in his dashing Spanish clothes, next to the Sicilian girl with her hair twisted and adorned with almond blossoms and in her plainer, more traditional clothing.

The Neapolitan man with his somewhat fairer skin, ease of public speech and more openly read features contrasted deeply with the almost completely silent, narrow-eyed, mahogany-skinned young woman that mainlanders would casually and derisively refer to as “the Moor” or “the Gorgon”. Sicilian people were concerned that the Neapolitan man was spineless and a womanizer. They were not entirely wrong.

The Sicilians complained that their territory’s new marriage to Naples would mean that their courts would become more Spanish. The Neapolitans were concerned that their territory’s marriage meant that their courts would become more Sicilian.

Upon seeing the two of them interact, it was very clear to anyone that they were in love. The question, however, was if they would stay that way and how much that would affect inter-territorial relations.

The fact that the territories were joined and still under the absolute Spanish crown was met with two parts quiet acceptance and one part increasing unease.

There had, of course, been other opposition to the union. It was ultimately arranged with the Spanish interest in mind, but Antonio himself had wanted it to be delayed or, ideally, never go through. Perhaps because it meant that his ward would move out of Antonio’s house and would not necessarily answer directly to Antonio anymore. If the marriage went through, Romano would be living back in Naples with his new…wife…and would be increasingly independent.

The Spaniard assigned his closest friend and Serafina’s cousin, the nation of Piedmont, to make sure that Spanish interests were being protected. He was to visit once a week to “check up”. Antine, knowing full well why Antonio was so concerned about Romano not being at Antonio’s beck and call, humored him and accepted the extra payment for spending more time with his family.

 

This, of course, was exactly what had happened. One year later, the Spaniard’s subordinate had been managing more of his own affairs while living with his wife in Naples. They did not live in luxury the way the Spanish did, but they were comfortable. Antine would occasionally drop by to eat their food, complain, and leave. It was absolute bliss.

Romano came home on this day, one year after this household had been inaugurated, to find Antine sitting—no, artfully sprawled—in his parlor.

“Do you have a life yet, Antine?”

“No, but I’ve had a couple close calls. Do you have any absinthe?”

“Why would I have absinthe?”

“Because it’s great and I want to fuck myself up for two hours? Also, where’s my cousin?”

“She’s out; she had to go back to Sicily for a few days. She will be back today, though.”

“Without you?”

“I’m her husband, not her chaperone. She’s fully capable of handling business on her own.”

Antine exhaled through his teeth, adjusting his glasses.

“People will talk, you know. Married woman roaming the streets of Palermo?”

“When don’t they talk?” asked Lovino, untying his cravat. “And when will these stop being fashionable so that my neck can see the light of day again? Remember open collared shirts? I miss them.”

“I’m old enough to remember when you could walk around naked. Those were good times.”

“Sunburn. Not that I’ve ever had one, but I imagine it’s why we don’t do that anymore.”

“White people ruin everything.”

There was another knock at the door; the knock going unanswered, the door was briskly opened by an easily recognizable and equally unfortunate figure.

“Speak of the devil—“ muttered Antine, looking for something to drink while the Neapolitan and the Englishman stared at each other across a table.

“Where’s Sicily?”

“You know, everyone seems to be asking that question,” said the mainlander, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I _will_ say that if she were a snake, she’d bite you.”

_Click._

Arthur turned around to look directly into the barrel of Serafina’s pistol. His hands pulled themselves off of his hips, gently opening in perhaps the most condescending “hands-up” gesture the human world had ever seen.

“Who decided it was a good idea to give you a gun?”

“It was a wedding gift. And a very useful one, at that. What do you think you’re doing in my house?”

“Your brother’s run off. Probably to find you, if he’s not here _already…_ ”

“You could have sent a letter instead of breaking and entering.”

“I thought I would convey the urgency of the situation through the power of my physical presence.”

“So not only did you steal my little brother and coerce his guardian into giving him to you in the guise of a treaty, you have _lost_ him?”

“Well-“

“And you are coming into his old house, to harass and harangue his family, to specifically bully his sister, who has raised him all these years, because _you_ failed to protect him? Because _you_ failed to watch over him and make sure of where he was?”

“I-“

“Because _you_ could not be bothered to be a good guardian? Get out of my house.”

“What—“

“Get. Out. Salvatore is not here. I don’t want to see you until he has been found. He is not here. I have no reason to lie to you. A Sicilian keeps their word.”

“Fine.”

The pistol saw Arthur out more than Serafina did. The door slammed shut. Serafina dropped the gun on the table with her keys and a small sack of oranges. Romano walked over with arms outstretched. Her face split into a grin.

“You did that.”

“What’s a girl to do, really?” she said, pretending to swoon into the Neapolitan’s arms.

“You poor, defenseless, _timid_ little creature,” he replied, lifting her back up and kissing her lightly on the neck. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Malta is missing.”

“That seems to be the case. Do you think we should go looking for him?”

“Remember that time you tried to use a dog to track his scent across the fucking ocean? And not even a scent hound, at that? We’re too far away. There’s nothing we can do.”

“That was…admittedly short-sighted of me.”

“I will always hold the time you forgot how water removes smells from things near and dear to my heart. Wait for him to contact you, Nina. And _then_ maybe start planning the heist.”

“I would just like to remind you all that I am here,” said Antine, rolling over onto the floor, “and that you are not going to get off of an Empire’s shit list by threatening him at gunpoint.”

“We’re Spanish wards, it’s not like we weren’t on it already,” she retorted, moving to look him in his glasses. “Thanks for staying quiet when he was here, though. Really helpful.”

“That’s what I’m all about, cousin. By the way, do you have absinthe?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Salvatore should have known better, really.

The sea he was used to was the Mediterranean. It was a sea that was forgiving, maternal even, that cradled you in its greenish waters and made sure you made it to shore. His sea was one that you could see directly through, one with each school of fish being in your field of vision as you swam through it. It would cover you with gentle kisses, apologizing gently for stinging your eyes with its salt. His sea could be cut through like butter with the proper oar, and would not drown you even in the harshest weather. If you went west, towards the Strait of Messina, you would have to deal with strong riptides. But the Maltese sea, and sailing around Malta, was much more forgiving than the waters his sister dealt with on a regular basis.

But this sea was not his sea.

The North Sea, by contrast, would grab you by the shoulders and shake you until your teeth fell out of your head. It would grab you by your temples and slam you into walls, floors, ceilings, not giving you time to react. It would stuff a hand down your mouth to keep you from crying out for help, letting you gag and retch on its salty, cold fingers.

And it was in this sea that the hull of the ship Salvatore was on had cracked in. It was this sea that Salvatore, physically barely thirteen, was at the complete and utter mercy of. And it was this brutal sea that swept Salvatore off his feet, kissing him with ice-cold lips and not giving him the dignity of allowing him to begin to swim before spitting him out into a vortex of frosted waves.

His sword, which should have been swept away by the roiling water, stayed perfectly attached to his hip. He did not have time to think on this, desperately trying to keep his head above the water. It was one of the few times that Salvatore thought he was truly going to die.

Finally, he grabbed onto a piece of what remained of the ship—a door, maybe a piece of the deck, he wasn’t sure—and he held on with whatever strength he had. Another wave crashed on top of him, causing his head to crack against the wood with a wet thud.

Oblivion.

He woke up cold, briny, and alone on a shore he did not recognize. He got up only to sit back down when his head began to reel. He reached up and gingerly touched the lump on his temple and the gash under his eye. He needed help…

What do I do here? Do I stay? Do I start walking? Where do I walk to…can I get a horse somehow? And…where am I in the first place?

He gulped, took a deep breath, and opened his eyes again. The priests always told him that everything that happened was part of a plan. If it was destined to happen, then it would happen. If not, so be it, and he would find a different solution.

He finally managed to get up, stumbling inland. He would make it home, no matter how long it took.

He hit a forest after about half an hour of walking, the shuffle of his feet making him stumble and fall as he walked forward. He found a stream after another fifteen minutes, where he slumped down and stared at his reflection before breaking it with his hands. Cupping handfuls of water, he washed off the blood and grime from his face in the hopes that it would clear his head and perhaps keep the wound from putrefying. Finishing this task, he gulped down more water in greedy mouthfuls. It was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. Where was he that the river water ran as if melted directly from ice, and forest was in walking distance of the seashore?

He heard a twig snap, and then a crash. His hand grasped at his sword, which was beginning to feel hot against his thigh.

Where was he that he could see a colossal green troll walking towards him, completely uninterested in making contact? It seemed to walk as if nothing could possibly disturb it. It seemed to be looking for something; when its eyes glazed past Salvatore’s shivering form, Salvatore assumed it was not looking for a frightened, wounded Maltese boy. Salvatore held his breath nevertheless. It passed him, and after waiting five minutes or so in a complete state of stillness, Salvatore got up to follow it. Perhaps there was a village nearby?

He had heard stories of the golem, a creature made by Jewish villagers to serve their interests. Maybe this was a golem? He had never seen one before, having assumed that it was a myth. But if fairies were real and you could buy them off with a bit of milk and bread, could this troll-like being be bought too?

He began to pick up his pace. If the troll could be bought with kindness, or a favor, or, gracious, he didn’t know—the berries that grew on these trees, maybe he could use the hulking creature to –

He had walked too fast; he was right on the creature’s heels. He was just about to duck behind a pine tree when it whirled around to look at him. His voice sounded like it came from the sky and the treetops rather than from inside of him. It was deafening.

“What do you want from me, boy? I do not have the time to swat away a gnat.”

“My name is Salvatore St. John, sir. Where am I?”

“This is my mountain.”

“Yes it is, but where is this mountain located?”

“Begone.”

Salvatore’s sword was burning against his leg. Use me, it seemed to whisper. You know you want to.

“No, sir. Tell me where I am.”

“You will not need to know where you are, boy, once I send you to the afterlife.”

The Maltese boy gulped, but then let an uncharacteristic grin grace his visage.

“The ocean just tried to kill me and failed. I cannot imagine you can do a better job.”

The troll charged, giving Salvatore just enough time to draw his new sword and dodge. The sword warmed his hands, almost telling him just how it wanted to be used. Parry. Thrust, feint…faster, he’s much bigger than you and he knows it…

The troll charged again and, holding his ground, Salvatore sunk the blade deep into the center of the troll’s chest. It roared in a way that made Salvatore’s peripheral vision blur. The troll keeled over, its breath rasping out of its gaping maw.

Salvatore heard another twig snap. The snapping of the twig was rapidly followed by the snapping of fingers; Salvatore tried to see who it was, only to realize that he could not so much as move his eyes. Frozen. He finally heard a young man’s voice, as cold and severe as the water still swilling in Salvatore’s stomach:

“You come to my lands, float your filthy body through my fjords, stick your grimy hands into my drinking water, and stab my jötunn? Who do you think you are?”

The owner of the cold voice finally came into his vision. He was whiter than anyone Salvatore had ever seen before; his hair was wispy, a silvery blond that Salvatore had seen only on one other person. But his most striking feature was his eyes: dark blue, to the point of being almost purple, and seemingly having no pupils. They struck a blade’s edge of balance between beauty and the uncanny.

“Do you know what kind of animal would act in such a way? A pig. And that’s all you are to me.”

He snapped his fingers again, and Salvatore dropped to the ground. He watched his skin grow thick and pink; his hands and feet shriveled, replaced by hooves. Before he could beg for forgiveness, his mouth was replaced with a long snout and his voice replaced with porcine shrieks and squeals.

“You’re going to remember who you are and have a human consciousness for about thirty more minutes, but don’t count on enjoying them. I’m taking you home with me. Once those thirty minutes are up, I’m cutting you open and turning you into svinestek.”

More shrieks. More squeals.

The Norwegian pulled the sword out of his guardian, healing him before grabbing the swine’s freshly useless clothes and weapons.

“What’s a piggy like you going to need an enchanted sword for?” he said, sheathing it and strapping it to his waist.

“Come along,” he said, no sense of emotion in his voice, as he pulled Salvatore along with what used to be Salvatore’s belt. “Dinner won’t cook itself.”


	9. Chapter 9

“You turned out to be an awfully fat pig. Funny, since you were so scrawny a human.”

Salvatore stayed silent, twitching his moistening snout. He did not like how this man towered over him now; before, they were almost equal height. But Salvatore stayed quiet, trundling along, trying to find a way out of this increasingly dire predicament.

“It is curious how you got a sword like this, though. I wonder what kind of parentage you had. Probably not good, given how you’re a complete and utter brat.”

At that, Salvatore let out an indignant squeal.

“We’re almost home.”

It probably occurred to the Norwegian man that it was strange to be walking through the woods and talking to his future dinner. The _jötunn_ knew better than to comment on it, but he quieted nonetheless.

“Took you long enough, Lukas.”

“I had a bit of a hang-up catching this one,” said the Norwegian man, pulling on Salvatore’s makeshift harness.

 _Lukas,_ thought Salvatore. _His name is Lukas. And he is going to eat me. These men are going to cut me up and eat me._

The man Lukas was talking to stood up. Salvatore would have gasped if he were in his original body; Lukas’s partner was enormously tall; Salvatore had never seen a man as tall as this foreigner before.

“How did you catch a perfectly pink, domestic-looking pig?”

“It probably escaped from somewhere, but that’s not really my problem.”

 _The sword. Lukas has my sword,_ thought Salvatore. _The tall man is suspicious._

Salvatore shrieked, lunging forward and biting at the sheath of his stolen sword. Lukas kicked at him, falling over while Salvatore desperately tried to grab for the blade. Alas, no thumbs. It was more difficult than he thought it would be.

“Lukas, where did you get that sword from?”

“I—“

“I want you to cast a spell that undoes any magic.”

“That’s an oxymoron. And possibly more stupid than you are.”

“I need to know you’re not lying to me.”

Salvatore started to wonder if his thirty minutes were close to being up; the longer he stayed a pig, the more okay he was with it.

“I may have not paid much attention during our lessons as kids, but if there’s one thing I know, pigs don’t knock people over and grapple for weapons!”

The Norwegian man glared at his taller companion.

_“Fine.”_

A moment of silence. Finally, a snap of Lukas’s fingers. Hooves turned to grasping fingers, a snout to a proud Maltese nose, pink skin back to dark brown. Salvatore stood up wearing nothing but a look that could kill.

“May I have my sword and my clothes back, _sir_?”

The taller man turned at the sprawled-out sorcerer.

“Did you just try to feed me a thirteen year old boy shapeshifted into a pig? Can’t you just catch a rabbit like a normal person?”

“He was trespassing. I caught him stabbing my _jötunn—“_

“Wait…not only did you engage in combat with a troll, but you _stabbed it?_ You were going to _win?_ You must be _lightning,_ how did you—“

“Matthias, don’t encourage him—“

“Come on, Lukas! It’s the million dollar question!” The tall man turned to look Salvatore in the eye. “Brown skin, grey eyes, foreign accent…what’s your name?”

“Salvatore St. John, sir.”

“HA! I knew it. Figures as much it would be you, no? You’re much taller than they say. I guess you’ve grown since that Siege, though. ”

Salvatore’s eyes widened.

“Wait, how do you know—“

“People talk. And I’ve heard a lot about you! I have heard you are _incredible_ with a sword.”

Salvatore’s adrenaline rush was wearing off, and he began to feel cold.

“Can I please have my clothes back before I tell you anything?”

“Lukas, I’m assuming you stole his other shit too?”

“I have it in my possession, if that’s what you mean.”

“Give them back.”

Lukas would not make eye contact while returning his things. Salvatore did not expect him to.

“Pardon my bluntness, but where am I?”

“You’re in Norway,” said the tall man, pulling up a chair for him to use while dressing. “You can call me Matthias. The guy you ran into earlier is Lukas. He’s Norwegian, I’m…well, I’m not. I’m Danish. But! Please tell me everything you know!”

“About what?”

“How did you beat a damn mountain troll, shortstack?”

“Well…the sword helps.”

The Danish man laughed. Salvatore buttoned his pants, sitting there shirtless and blushing.

“No, really. My sword was talking to me. It reads the situation and tells me…how to act, I suppose?”

“Does it talk to you, or just anyone?”

“I…actually, I don’t know. Do you want to try?” the Maltese boy asked innocently, gesturing towards his weapon.

“Sure. Nothing I can’t handle. I know my way around plenty of magical weapons,” Matthias replied, using a tone that was implying modesty but using words that were not at all modest. He grabbed the sword triumphantly only to drop it half a second later, his palm sizzling like lard in a frying pan. He began to swear in a slurred, barn owl-sounding language that Salvatore failed to understand.

“Is _that_ how it talks to you?”

“No, sir, it only heats up a bit when it senses danger.”

“Hmph.”

“ _Du er ikke verdig!”_ called a voice from the bowels of the house. It almost sounded playful.

 _“Oof, må ikke såre mig på den måde!”_ he called back. “So…what exactly are you doing all the way up here? You’re Malta, yes? Malta’s way down south. I think? Right?”

“Yes. Near Africa.”

“So…vacation? Soul searching? Crusade?”

“What?”

“Why are you here, Salvatore?”

“I…I ran away from England. I was trying to get home, and the boat was wrecked. I washed up on your shores.”

His eyes flashed with recognition.

“You’re an awfully long way from home, little knight.”

“I am trying to remedy that.”

Lukas finally came back out of the back rooms, drying his hands.

“Sir…” he faltered, not knowing either’s surnames. “…Lukas?”

“Yes?”

“If I were to catch you rabbits to eat, would you forgive me for my previous transgressions?”

Lukas looked at him again with those bottomless violet eyes. Salvatore felt cold.

“Four rabbits in my hands by sundown, and your guarantee that you will leave and you will not disrespect my land that way again.”

Salvatore got up, pulling on his ragged shirt.

“Yes, sir.”

“Before you head out—every good sword has a name. Even Lukas knows that, and he can’t even touch a weapon without breaking into a sweat.”

“That’s nonsense—“

“He picked up a magic wand because it was the lightest weapon the world could offer!”

Salvatore barely had enough time to step out of the way before Lukas came barreling at Matthias, a brief bout ensuing that seemed almost moments away from devolving into a passionate kiss. Salvatore felt like he was watching something very intimate, and looked away.

“…anyway. What is your sword called, Salvatore?”

He paused, looking down at the sword in his grasp. Listening for its name.

“Harbinger.”

Salvatore immediately left the Norwegian’s residence, off to catch four rabbits and be on his way. The cut on his face still stung, but it wasn’t anything that he was unaccustomed to. The knot on his temple had ceased to cause him dizziness, only punctuating his consciousness with a dull throb.

_“Why four rabbits, sir? Why not five? Why not three?”_

_“A sacrifice to my gods.”_

_“There’s only one god, sir.”_

_Lukas’s small smile did not touch his eyes._

_“Four rabbits for my **gods**.”_

_“Yes, sir.”_

Now that he was starting to grow, he understood why physically older nations complained about their joints. He hoped that there wasn’t a catch to this other than the rabbits themselves; judging from how cold it was here, he was very far away from home.

He did not know he had company in the woods.

Matthias himself had gone out, waiting about half an hour before departing. He wanted to see if he could catch the boy before he left for good; he had far more questions to ask, and he figured he might help the boy catch those rabbits as well. Lukas tended to be a little harsh, and he was hoping that perhaps by helping him it would smooth out any creases left from his…traumatic introduction to their part of the world. Being transformed into an animal was a _pig_ deal….shit. Oh, shit. He meant a ‘big’ deal. Sorry, little man.

_The door shut behind the intruder turned atoner._

_“He cannot come into_ my _country, tell_ me _how to pr—“_

_“He’s a kid. He didn’t mean it, Lukas.”_

_“He’s the same age as both of us, Matthias. He should at least start to act like it.”_

_“What do you mean? He’s our age?”_

_“Remember your campaign in Arab lands back in the Viking days, when you tried to conquer the Mediterranean? You almost succeeded, but you got chased out by that yellow-eyed girl with nothing but a dagger—“_

_“I…we’re not talking about that.”_

_“ She had a little boy on her hip, remember? The little boy had the same grey eyes. I think it was him.”_

_“So he’s been a baby for a long time and is only just starting to grow up. So what? Emil has been, too. If he said something like that, would you be as strict as you’re being? Our brains don’t catch up with how old our terrain is—“_

_“Yours certainly hasn’t.”_

Salvatore had caught his four rabbits, swinging them over his head by the ears and hearing the neck snap before sticking them under his arm. That used to bother him; when he was smaller, he only wanted his sister or cousin to do it so that he would not feel their lives slip between his fingers. Somehow, he didn’t care as much anymore. He didn’t even know why he valued the lives of these prey animals more than he valued anyone else; he had mortally injured people before. He didn’t like doing it, but he had had to in the past, especially when he went to the Holy Land as a Knight Hospitaller. But there was something much more intimate about snapping a creature’s neck with your bare hands.

Matthias had tripped on a rock, the way he keeled over making a loud sound that echoed through the trees and sent a flock of birds flying. This is what he got for drinking on an empty stomach. Of course, he would never tell anyone that he was tipsy…he hated that word; he wished there was something a little more masculine sounding that meant the same thing. Oh! He remembered. Buzzed. He was buzzed.

Salvatore’s interlude on what lives mattered to him and why they mattered to him was broken by a loud crash, sending a flock of birds near him off in a hurry. His hand grasped the hilt of his sword. Interestingly, it was not warming up. Perhaps what was out there wasn’t dangerous? He went off to investigate anyway, tying his rabbits together with the remnants of his cravat and dropping them in his soaked, crusty knapsack. Was it going to be another one of those colossal green things? What had Matthias called them again…he couldn’t pronounce it. He would go with his initial idea: a troll.

He reached for the sword. _No,_ it whispered. _Something else._ Confused, Salvatore reached for the rabbits. The moonlight draped over the treetops, but made everything look distorted through the pine needles; some things just looked more menacing and much larger through this lens. Salvatore saw a figure begin to loom in the darkness, lurching forward. He bit back a shriek and instead practically roared, lobbing the rabbit-bomb at the creature before jumping back.

Matthias had not expected to be brutally thwacked in the face by four freshly-dead rabbits when he woke up that morning, but here he was. The rabbits went flying off to his side before he could identify them, but gave enough claws and teeth in their projectile status to double him over again, covering his face with both hands before roaring:

“WHO DID THAT?!”

Salvatore, realizing his error and realizing he had promised Lukas to not hurt anything else on his territory, froze before giving a name in English:

“NOBODY DID THAT!”

He took off in the opposite direction, hot tears burning in the corner of his eyes. _Sorry, Matthias…I didn’t mean to. This time, I deserve to be turned into a pig._

He ran until he felt that his lungs had turned into dishrags, finally reached a port, and begged a man for safe passage to anywhere that wasn’t Norway, please sir, get him as far away as possible. Or at least, that’s what he was trying to convey; he eventually stowed away on a boat that said it was heading through the Baltic Sea. Or at least…he thought he could make out “Baltic” on the roster. Exhausted, he curled himself up with the storage crates and fell asleep.

Lukas knew something was amiss when he heard a Danish accent bellowing “NOBODY HIT ME” off somewhere in the woods. Rolling his eyes and donning his cloak, he went off to investigate.

“Who hit you?”

“Nobody. Weren’t you listening?”

“Well, someone clearly hit you. Look at your face.”

“No…I asked ‘who did that’ and a voice cried out ‘Nobody did that’. His name was Nobody.”

Lukas saw a mass of fur out of the corner of his eye. Picking it up, he kissed his teeth quietly.

“These are four rabbits. Perfectly wrapped up, ready for delivery. Was that child raised by wolves?”

“What?”

“Don’t be stupid, Matthias. It had to have been that child we just spared.”

Lukas’s eyes closed, and the Norwegian man got palpably, poisonously quiet.

“Lukas, it was dark out, he probably thought I was—“

“It’s not acceptable. We gave him a second chance, and he quite literally beat you across the face with it.”

“Lukas, don’t be weird—“

“I’m going to offer these, and then I’m going to the _nidstang._ ”

“You still have one of those?”

“You don’t?”

They walked home in uncomfortable silence, both knowing what the other was going to do. Matthias was going to slump in a chair with his purpling face that he promised didn’t hurt so bad and hope that Lukas would show mercy. Lukas was going to go to the _nidstang_ and decidedly not be merciful. They opened the door, and Lukas immediately made a beeline for the back of the house.

“Lukas?”

"Mm.”

“He’s just a kid.”       

 “No, he is not.”

***

            Salvatore could not sleep. His eyes were closed, but all he could feel was the hot and cold of a fever and a guttural voice growling into his ear:

 _“I curse. I curse him that soils our land and our water. I curse him that slaughters our holy, fierce warriors. I curse him that comes into our home and abuses our countrymen. I call upon the_ rimthurses _from the depth of_ Niflheim _, that they may freeze him to his death before he may scorch another. I call upon Odin Allfather, He who gave spirit to man and woman, he who together with his brothers Hoenir and Lodur gave life to man, Body and Soul, Ask and Embla, Man and Woman, to curse this wicked deed. Upon the head of this miscreant I call all powers. May he never return home. May he never know peace. May he never sleep in the arms of another man or woman. I curse until this drooling servant of devils, of evil, of ignorance, does penance. As the gods will it!”_

            Salvatore felt like he was clamped in iron rings, incapable of moving as they squeezed tighter and tighter around him. He could feel his joints begin to come apart. He couldn’t breathe; his forehead seared as if someone was writing into it with a firebrand.

         The _nid_  was felt by two other people, one of whom we know already: Arthur Kirkland woke up in a cold sweat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:  
> Du er ikke verdig! - You are not worthy! (Norwegian)  
> Oof, må ikke såre mig på den måde! - Oof, do not wound me in such a way! (Danish)  
> A nid is a powerful Old Norse curse. One needs a nidstang to perform a nid; a nidstang is a giant stone full of runes that has a horse skull on top.


	10. Chapter 10

The year was 1770 and Gilbert Bielschmidt, Antonio Fernandez Carriedo and Francis Bonnefoy were sitting together. Gilbert and Antonio were arguing about whether or not Spain’s Mediterranean island territories were inherently bloodthirsty while Francis was stealing and then promptly but tastefully consuming their forgotten glasses of wine.

“You don’t agree with me on that? Okay, fine. That’s perfectly reasonable, if not outrageously stupid. Almost every time we’re together, you’re bitching about another rebellion, another uprising, another—whatever shit they’ve been pulling.”

“Gilbert, they’re kids, they’ll wear out over time—“

“They’re older than you, aren’t they? Do you really believe what you’re saying? Here, Antonio, I’m willing to cast a wager.”

“I’m listening.”

“Your king has been talking about joining Naples and Sicily when they come of age, especially now that you’ve had them back under the Bourbon crown for a few decades. If that marriage ever happens—when those two are grown up or in the process of doing so—I’m going to give you a gun.”

“You want me to shoot them?”

“Let me finish. I’m putting a fancy bow on a gun—it will be a pretty gun, maybe an ivory-handled pistol or something, but still definitely a gun—and you’re placing it on the gift table on my behalf. I have never met the islander girl, but I will bet anything that she will run for that gun and strap it to her waist, wedding dress and all. Because she’s going to fucking use it. Your little Ganymede—“ Antonio flinched a second time, “—isn’t going to even look at that gun, let alone grab for it.”

“What are you wagering?”

“Their independence. If that happens, you have to let them go. Because if you don’t, they’ll end up killing you.”

Antonio exhaled through his nostrils, taking a long gulp of wine before looking back into Gilbert’s red eyes.

“Deal.”

“Shake on it.”

Their hands clasped.

“Anyway, Francis, sorry. What were you saying about your new territory who is so adorable that I’m certain will definitely try to murder you someday? What’s his name? Corsica?”

                                                                                                                                    ***

The stamp said the letter was marked to be sent five years ago, in the year of 1816.

"It took five years for him to send a fucking letter." 

"He probably had it on his desk and didn't bother to actually send it? It says Arthur sensed him in Norway." 

“Norway?”

“Norway.”

“How the fuck did he get to Norway?” her husband asked, peering over her shoulder to look at the letter in her hands. “And how does Arthur know he’s there?”

“Magic, apparently.”

“Is he fucking with you? Or us? To who was this letter even addressed?”

“Lovino,” she smirked, tapping him on the shoulder with the back of her pen, “it’s _whom_.”

“ _Okay._ Whom fucketh with you in yonder hills as the moon doth shine on my bare ass? It’s Juliet, to the east, who doesn’t correct me on my grammar when I’m speaking my own native language.”

He flipped over the envelope as she rolled her eyes. “It’s addressed to you and only you. He even called you Miss and used your maiden name…look, see? I’ll pretend to not be offended.” Romano flipped the envelope back over. “And a wax seal with an imprint of what I assume is Excalibur? He _has_ to be fucking with you.”

“I mean, would he have reason to?” she asked, looking back up at him. “He lost Sasà; he would probably not gain anything from lying to me about where he actually was.”

“ _Porca miseria,_ this is fucking ridiculous. He obviously has no qualms about showing up where we live for no damn reason, why can’t he do that now?”

“Because when I was holding a gun to the back of his head I said he should send a letter next time.”

“Oh, wow. I guess he really is a true English gentleman. Maybe sending a weird, cryptic letter in the mail implying that you’re some kind of fucking warlock is better than breaking into someone’s house. It’s also better than stealing an eight year old. I guess people CAN change.”

“Wait…” she squinted at the paper. “Wait, is this…oh my god.”

“What?”

“It’s a sonnet. He wrote this letter in the form of a sonnet. And it’s not even _my_ form of a sonnet. It’s his stupid, half-assed version. And it’s in _French,_ and it’s not even _good French._ Who the hell does he think he is, trying to act like he knows anything about poetry?”

“So he wrote you a sonnet in French about how your brother was going to die from a Norwegian horse-skull death trap and how he knew that because he was a magician?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Apparently.”

“Adding that to the list of sentences I thought I would never say.”

“Okay, Lovino. Are we going to Norway? If he’s under this _nid_ like Arthur says he is, he probably can’t get in contact with the postman—“

“Excellent deduction skills, as always.”

“Fuck _off_ ,” she said, leaning back into his chest. “He says it’s possible that Salvatore has already left Norway, but the spell itself was definitely something this…Lukas Bondevik…guy cast. ”

“What did Salvatore do to get the horse-skull death curse?”

“Can you call it by its actual name?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Arthur doesn’t seem to know why Salvatore got hit with it, but it’s very old and very potent magic. Whatever happens to Salvatore…it will not be good. Something, something, something, more things I can’t make out…you know, his French is really not good, and neither is his handwriting…probably worse than this _nid_ thing. The rhyming scheme is the only thing that’s helping me really parse out what he’s saying.”

“What if it’s not even a letter about Salvatore and it’s actually just a recipe for biscuits that he’s rendered illegible by being really pretentious?”

“Then I will personally go to London just to shove this atrocity up his ass.”

“When you’re done reading this letter, can I have it?”

“Why would you—“

“Married man sees that his wife has received a sonnet in French from a foreign man who also broke into their house one time? Imagine the _scandal_ , he’d never come back again.”

“Lovino, it isn’t worth it. From what I can tell, he’s also gay as a pinstripe, so I don’t think it would really amount to anything. And what would you do if you accused him of trying to seduce me? Would you defend my honor and yours by proxy? Duel him? Lose?”

“Serafina,” he sighed, rolling the four syllables of her name in his mouth like a piece of hard candy, “you wound me.”

“Not any more than being on the losing end of a duel would. Who would patch you up?”

He let out a huff, craning his head back.

“I assume you’d nurse me back to health, Nina, and return the favor after all the times I taped you up after your fights.”

“You know me. The nurturing, soft, sweet type.”

“Speaking of nurturing… my bosses know you’ve been sneaking off to feed Salvatore’s dog.”

“And what are they going to do about it? Is the damn dog a ward of the British Empire now too?”

“No, they didn’t know about the dog, they just knew you were leaving home in the dead of night without a chaperone. They asked me if you were having an affair.”

Nina’s face closed off.

“What, are you?” he teased, nudging her gently.

“Why do they feel so entitled to me, Lovino?” she asked softly, looking down at her feet. She was still leaning back against him. He moved to sit next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“I don’t know.”

“The only reason they care if I’m fucking someone else is because if I had a kid, it might not represent our territories.”

“You’re not having a kid, though.”

“They don’t know that. Every damn time I see one of your bosses, they ask me if I’m pregnant yet.”

“Do you think they...like, our bosses, I mean... can just…will you into pregnancy? What if I didn’t even have to do anything? What if you could just…start cooking?”

“Please. It’s too early in the day to start telling horror stories.”

“So are we going to Norway, Nina?”

“Let me crunch some numbers. I might want to wait to see if Arthur hears something else…it would be good to know if Salvatore’s going in one direction in particular.”

“Mm.”

“But one of us should stay. We can’t just both go on vacation, Lovino.”

“If I leave, does that mean you have to do my work?”

“Yes-“

“I’m leaving. Maybe forever."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Salvatore woke up in a cold, dark room. Two figures loomed over him that he vaguely recognized. They smelled like others of his kind. Old. Not the way old humans smelled. When humans said “old-smelling”, that referred to old as an adjective’s scent: a sweet, sickly smell of old yarn and talc powder. No, he was referring to how old as a noun smelled: dust, catacombs, that wine-cellar mustiness that no human could place when they looked at the silent figure behind a leader’s desk. It was creased into Arthur and Francis’s overcoats the same way starch was. He would know it anywhere.

“Where am I?” he rasped, speaking out against his better judgment.

The taller figure knelt down, one ray of light in the room falling across his face. Salvatore recognized it not because of having seen his face specifically before, but because they were the same features his sister proudly and unabashedly sported.

_“Abi?”_

_“Batno’am,”_ breathed the dead nation of Carthage, “I am so happy to finally meet you, but I wish it were not under these circumstances.”

Salvatore reached towards him, touching his face. He had only heard of his father in stories from his sister. The coarse black hair on Carthage’s face prickled against the boy’s hand.

“I have been watching you from here, _Batno’am_. I am so proud of you and your sister.”

“Where am I?”

“You are in the afterlife. You were cursed, my boy. A curse that strong would send anyone here, human and nation alike.”

_“Abi,_ am I dead?”

“Yes, but not for long. You will go back to the world of the living soon. But you will be fine. You will slip back to where you belong any moment now.”

“ _Abi_ , my sister misses you so. I have only heard of you in stories. I want to talk more, I want to know you—“

“I cannot come to the world of the living,” he sighed, lifting his arms to show the iron manacles clamped tightly around his dark wrists. “My fields were sowed with salt. There is nothing for me to return to. As for your sister, well… _azmeshmouniaton._ She knows what she must do. _Batno’am,_ you have a perilous journey ahead of you. You have my sword—“

“Harbinger is yours?”

“Parts of it were. For the most part, it is reforged and repurposed, yes, but the base of your weapon is my own sword. Don’t you find it curious that out of all the swords, that one specifically is what leaped into your hands when you needed it most? It knows who you are.”

“ _Abi,_ what will await me in the world of the living?”

“You must be careful of two warring factions. You must put yourself between them, but pick one side on which to align. Both will hurt you; it is your decision as to which you would rather hurt you. The second is a herd of cattle. No matter how hungry you may be, do not harvest a single one of them. The rest you must know on your own.“

“I just want to go home,” he said in a voice that was almost a whine. The Carthaginian chuckled.

“You will get there in time.”

“Hannô, hurry, he is going to fade away soon,” the second figure cautioned. She bowed into view and Salvatore saw a pair of wide, stunningly grey eyes. His eyes.

“ _Ami?_ ” he cried, sitting up. Spots crowded his vision as he began to hyperventilate.

“I don’t want to go! Let me stay!”

“Arabia, what did you want to —“

The Arabian woman lunged forward to plant a kiss to the Maltese boy’s searing hot forehead. It was all she had wanted to do since dying before her time.

“ _Zeyaad,_ please be safe. We love you. We are watching. And, my darling boy, be careful of those who sing sweet nothings; they will never do what they say so beautifully.”

“I don’t want to go back—“

“It is your duty, _Zeyaad._ You were born for your purpose, as your father was before you.” She looked over at Hannô. “To lead is in your blood. You must embrace it. You must be strong, little one. God wills it.”

He lowered his gaze, eyes welling up with tears.

“Yes, _ami._ I will do as you say. I miss you so much, though.”

The last thing he felt was his mother’s arms wrapping around him and her cheek pressed to the top of his head; the last thing he heard before awakening was his mother’s voice saying “ _’ahabak”_.

He awoke surrounded by completely different boxes, still in the bowels of the same ship, with the phrase “ _ahbuk ‘aydaan”_ on his lips. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting with the Phoenician!  
> Abi - Dad  
> Batno'am - Son of Charm (Salvatore's Punic name/First Name)  
> Azmeshmouniaton - Eshmouniaton is tough (Eshmouniaton being Serafina/Sicily's First Name).
> 
> Now for Arabic!  
> Ami - Mom  
> Zeyaad - Salvatore's Arabic name! This name is where he derived his Romance/Latin name from.  
> 'Ahabak - I love you  
> Ahbuk ‘aydaan - I love you too


	11. Chapter 11

Salvatore managed to sneak off of the boat and into a harbor that he truly did not recognize. Their eyes searched him; all having seemingly never seen someone like him before. His sword felt cold and lifeless at his side, even after he had been told by his own father that it was made to protect him. No. No one was going to protect him. He was alone out here. He better get used to it; the only people who wanted him alive were either far away or dead.

~~~

She was still lying on the bed, looking over at the only thing moving in the room before opening her mouth.

“Are you really that desperate to not do paperwork that you’ll go to _Norway_?”

“Absolutely,” he replied half-facetiously, starting to button his shirt. They’d had this conversation a few times already, with her always starting with that sentence. It was less of a genuine question and more of a joke between them at this point.

“Why should you go looking for him and not me?”

That part wasn’t in the script.

“He’s _my_ little brother too, you know,” he retorted.

Serafina finally went quiet, fiddling with the end of the bedcover.

“I keep having dreams about my mom, Nina. It’s been every night since Arthur first came and said he was missing. She keeps asking me where Salvatore is and I keep having to tell her that I don’t know. I can’t do that to her anymore…I can’t do that to myself anymore.”

He moved back over to her, leaning forward and kissing the spot on her neck that he had bruised with the same mouth not half an hour before.

“Just let me do this, okay? You won’t have to sneak around to go off for the dog. I promise I’m not doing it to avoid anything. ”

She actually laughed, craning her neck back and letting him kiss her more.

“Amatus Ambrosius, you’re doing it a little bit to avoid things.”

“Okay, a bit. I will give you that. But I think my skill set is best for this? If he’s really hit with some kind of enchantment that makes him slower to heal, maybe someone like me who knows how that stuff works would be best. I'm a healer. Or at least I attempt to be. But...you want him back, don’t you? Will it make you happy?”

She pulled him away to make eye contact with him.

“You make me happy as is. But yes, I’d like Salvatore to at least be…located. He’s Arthur’s now…I know we can’t take care of him without starting another damn war. I don’t think he would want that…but what do I know, really? He’s probably a totally different person. I haven’t seen him in so long.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Or forgetful…”

“You think he’d forget you? That’s…okay, Nina, you’re not allowed to think that little of yourself.”

“Neither are you. You’re worse than I am, which is nearly impossible. _You_ are now not allowed to talk shit about yourself if I can’t either.”

“Are you really going to take away eighty percent of my personality like that?”

She sighed and he got back up.

“Is Spain even going to let you go?”

“He’s been acting really weird since…since lately.”

“Any idea why?”

“I think he…doesn’t like this,” he said, gesturing wildly at himself, Serafina, and the area around them.

“How is that his business?”

“I mean I think he wanted this to never happen. I think he wanted us to stay his dependent wards at his place.”

“What are you talking about? It was _his_ idea in the first place.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was the Crown’s idea. Antonio had nothing to do with it.”

“…fuck, you’re right.”

Lovino’s face split into a bitter smile.

“I usually am. People tend to forget that.”

“I believe in you!”

“You’re my wife. You have to.”

“I am contractually obligated to eventually give you a male child to inherit our lands. Everything else is optional and completely icing on the cake.”

“You don’t have to do that, either?”

“I’m just that nice.”

“Is “nice” why you keep running off to see that dog? What the hell else are you doing where the damn king himself sends me a letter about my wife’s whereabouts?”

“I’m exploring your city.”

“Cute. I don’t believe you, but I’m not asking questions because I have a boat to catch.”

“Thank you so much for supporting my independence, darling. Will Antonio let you go, then?”

“I’m going off right now to formally request, but if he says no I’m going to Norway anyway. There are two of us, dammit. It really shouldn’t be that big of an issue.”

“Okay. Be safe, alright?” She knew damn well there was no way she was going to keep him at home now that he’d set his mind to going; he was stubborn to an almost unhealthy degree.

“I will be.”

He finished getting dressed.

“Are you certain you want to know where I go?” she asked, walking him downstairs.

“Yes.”

“When you get back, we’ll have a talk. Okay?”

“Okay.”

And just like that, he left the house and left his wife with a feeling that something decidedly not good was on the horizon. But first…

Serafina closed her eyes before taking a deep breath.

“Come out, Antine. I know you’re there. Are you really such a freak that you’ll watch us _talk_ after instead of the actual act? Find your damn priorities.”

The Sardinian rolled out from under the couch, straightening his glasses.

“I have a question for you, Nina.”

“Shoot. And by shoot, I mean feel free to ask me. Please don’t literally shoot me.”

Antine’s glasses shone in the sunlight.

“I’ve been watching.”

“When aren’t you? You talking about me or just…in general?”

“In general. But regarding you…I have a question, Nina. I’ve seen you reading.”

“Oh, really? Antine, I’ve been literate for a long damn time. Longer than you. I taught Romano to read ages ago. I write poetry, I invented math—“

“Okay, you did not _invent_ math. You—“

“I was an assistant to Archimedes. Our work with physics is why we have levers, wrecking balls and pulley systems, and we developed the system of displacement. After marrying, am I not allowed to read anymore?“

“No, it’s _what_ you’ve been reading since you’ve moved to Naples.”

“I—“

Antine walked through her parlor into her study. “I’m looking at your bookshelves. Almost all of these books that have the most…bend to their covers are ones that have been forbidden by both the monarchies Savoy and Bourbon. Here are some anti-clerical texts…and I see plenty by Diderot, a fucking _atheist…_ oh… _Du Contrat Social ou Principes du droit politique,_ for example, is openly on your desk. It’s …heavily, _heavily_ underlined.”

Serafina didn’t know whether to run forward or run away.

“Am I not allowed to read a text that came out over fifty years ago, one that has informed the _hell_ out of the Re—the French governmental structure?”

Antine stepped back into view, leaning on the doorframe.

“You have contraband books. You have clearly been reading them extensively, to the point of taking _notes._ The books are ones cited by those who overthrew the Crown during the French Revolution. You’re sneaking off at night. You have extensive knowledge of how to use a pistol. You’re a housewife, there’s no way a normal person would have taught you how to do that. So, Serafina, let me ask you this as plainly as possible: are you a member of the  _Carbonari_?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Romano made it to Antonio’s house with no problems. It was only when he was in the Spaniard’s office and being given the coldest shoulder he had ever received that there were problems.

“Antonio, I’m here to formally request a leave of absence.”

“Go on.”

“Arthur Kirkland lost Salvatore, as you know…Salvatore ran away a few years back. Arthur has a lead on as to where Salvatore is. I’m going to fetch him…or see if I can, anyway. But I need your permission to do that.”

“Is Salvatore’s territory restored to the Bourbon Crown?”

“No, he’s still English.”

“Then it’s not your job.”  
“Antonio, he’s my brother—“

“He is Not. Your. Job.” The Spaniard turned his eyes from his work up to the Neapolitan. “Your work pertains only to that of the Houses of Bourbon and, secondarily, Savoy. All else is not relevant and therefore not worth pursuing.”

Romano began to chew on the inside of his cheek before saying something he was already regretting.

“If Portugal went missing, would you go look for him?”

“We are not talking about me and my brother, Romano,” he replied with an icy patience. “We are talking about _you_.”

“See, when I was smaller you would let me fuck off wherever and whenever.”

The Spaniard looked back down at his papers, continuing to write.

“I could do no wrong in your eyes back then. I would do all sorts of _horrible,_ unbelievably stupid and destructive things just because I could, and because you would smile at me and say ‘it’s fine, Romano, it’s all fine. I’ll clean it up. It’ll be okay, Romano.’ I was supposed to be your…what, your maid? Your butler? What the fuck even is the terminology? Oh, right. Servant. I was supposed to be your _servant._ But you raised me as your little brother. I was practically your _son._ Why did that stop? What the _fuck_ happened between then and now?”

Silence. Antonio would not even make eye contact with him.

“You’ve always preferred my little brother, but _damn_. I always knew I was a replacement, if not for Portugal then maybe for him. I always knew that someday, you might just turn around and tell me you didn’t want me anymore. But now, I don’t really care. You know, I know why you didn’t want me to get married.”

It was like Antonio wasn’t even breathing. He had practically turned to marble.

“It wasn’t that I was too _young_. It was that I was too far away, my home from yours. Too far out of your hands, yeah? Too unfocused on things that didn’t involve you. You really think I don’t know why Antine keeps showing up at our house all the time? He’s a brother to me, but even then I know. He’s looking. Watching. You put him up to that, didn’t you?”

The air was thick with the restraint Antonio was showing. Romano didn’t care. Freshly-unbottled rage stuck in the back of his throat. It was hot and dry and volatile and would not do any good.

“I know lonely, Antonio. I know lonely better than I know my own damn family. Lonely has been with me for me longer than the state religion has been. Lonely was where I put my votive candles and it was at Lonely’s feet that I would find myself kneeling. Loneliness is the pillow I rested my head on for fucking _centuries_. And I realized the other day that I don’t feel as lonely anymore now that I’m with my people. I actually realized that moving out and getting married made me _happier_ because now that I’m in my capital, I can actually hear what my people want _._ ”

“Are you done?” interjected the Spaniard, but Romano was too caught up in the Spanish pouring out of his mouth, red-hot and spilling like blood from a bullet wound.

“I’m finally fucking _happy_ and almost at peace with myself and you fucking _hate_ it. You know what I said about lonely? It’s easy as _fuck_ for me to see it in other people as a result…and I’m saying this because I’m looking at you. You are a _lonely_ motherfucker, Antonio Fernandez Carriedo. That shit stinks on you like two-penny cologne.”

Antonio slammed his pen in his inkwell with such force that the stone vessel cracked in half, spilling its contents all over Antonio’s desk and ruining the papers he had been contemplating. He slowly slid back in his chair, tipping his head back to listen to the Neapolitan. His lips parted in a mirthless grin. _Keep going, I dare you._

“At least I _admit it_ that I have issues with loneliness. You won’t even admit it to yourself! When was the last time you were honest about _anything_ if it meant it might not serve your interests? Do you even know who you are behind all that bullshit and lying? How fucking _big_ is this castle now that it’s only you and a few others in it, ah? Why do you—“

“You’re not doing yourself any favors, _amigo_ ,” he warned.

“I’m going to Norway to save my little brother.”

“You are not.”

“You can’t do—“

“Yes, I can. And I will. You know why?”

Lovino did not know where this was going, but judging from the frighteningly detached gaze he was getting from the Spaniard, it was not going to be good.

“Because Antine has been watching your household and reported back to me _everything_ that you’ve been doing. Take Serafina, for example. I just signed her arrest warrant this morning! Poor thing, she’s always been one to stick her nose in books that she shouldn’t be reading.”

“Leave her out of this—“

“She’s been going to Freemason meetings out in the slums. That _bitch—“_

Now _there_ was a word Lovino had never heard Antonio use before.

_“—_ has been out spreading materials to the common folk of your respective territories and saying the Crown must be overthrown. That organization wants a secular government. It wants the end of the Pope, of Catholicism. And most importantly, they want to unify the Italian peninsula. That would kill you, no?”

Lovino realized that he was trembling. Antonio’s smile stayed perfectly attached to his face. Pleasant. Empty. He got up, shuffling the papers that hadn’t been destroyed by his shattered inkwell.

“You are not going back to Naples. You are not going to Norway, either. Serafina will be brought here to stand trial for high treason; should she be found guilty, she will be publicly executed in Palermo. I expect you to attend both her trial and execution.”

He gave Lovino’s shoulder a congratulatory squeeze that was just strong enough to make Lovino wince.

“It’s all for your own good,” he said, and Lovino wasn’t sure if it was directed at himself or at Antonio’s own conscience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:   
> Aaaand now the Unification subplot is a go!
> 
> To those of you who are upset that Spain is not nice in this chapter: Spain has never been nice to Italy. Italian people were just as oppressed and miserable under Spanish rule as any other Spanish colony, just less racial culling/slavery. There's your history lesson of the day.


	12. Chapter 12

_The year was…she didn’t know what year it was. In hindsight, she imagined it was around 500 BC. Back when she was only Ziz and not the entirety of her island._

_She was small,_ so _small, with her father standing over her and helping her hold his sword._

_“You will be able to do this on your own someday,” he said, big brown hands enveloping hers around the grip._

_“I am too small,_ abi _. See? My arms are not even the length of the blade. How will I fight the way you do? How will I fight at all? Why must I fight to begin with?”_

_He took the sword out of her hands, sticking it in the red, sun-baked earth before turning her around to look her in the eyes. His were serious and sad, the skin around them creased from sun exposure and a long, hard life._

_“Eshmouniaton,. You came into this world a woman, and to be a woman is to fight every day. People will try and take advantage of you because when they see women, they see someone soft and vulnerable. Men of other countries do not see women as people. They see women as prey. You must not be prey, my love. You do not have the luxury of trusting those around you. And maybe….” he chuckled to himself, looking at the size difference between his tiny daughter and his own weapon, “…maybe we should start smaller, eh? Let’s get you a dagger first.”_

One sentence her father had uttered in particular stuck in her craw when she was dragged out of her home by the police: _You do not have the luxury of trusting those around you._

Of course, usually she remembered the phrase said before that one: _You must not be prey._ That was the phrase in the back of her mind when she pulled a gun on her cousin.

“So do you admit it, then? Are you a revolutionary? Do you intend to overthrow your leaders? Are you a traitor to the Crown?”

“No, Antine, I admit to nothing. Although I will admit to wanting you to get the _hell_ out of my house. How is it any of your business what I—“

“It is my business, Nina. I am a representative of the House of Savoy. I am not just my island, I’m the Kingdom of Piedmont.”

“So you’re a fucking island as WELL as a small blotch of land on the mainland? My goodness, such prestige.”

“More than yours,” he said with a smirk. “Are you going to shoot me or are you going to sit there and admire the ivory handle on it before I take it away from you?”

_It was before she had gotten married and after her brother had been taken away from her. She had her nose in one of the books she’d hidden from the Inquisition: an old, well-loved tome of poetry and political musings. She was sitting under a tree and drinking straight black coffee from a repurposed jam jar. She had not slept in days. A familiar hand briefly reached to touch her shoulder in greeting. She jumped and clasped the book to her chest, looking up into violet-blue eyes._

_“Séraphine, if you’re going to read a subversive text, at least make it a new one. Here,” he said, pulling a book out of his knapsack. “I think this one in particular may interest you. This Swiss man is all the rage back where I live. I do not think your superiors have caught on to him yet.”_

_She stared up at him while taking the book from his outstretched hand. His eyes glinted conspiratorially._

_“Our little secret, yes?”_

The secret police, of course, only appeared while Antine was looking incredibly “concerned” and the Sicilian woman was very clearly readying her pistol to fire. It was an easier story to sell the public, after all, than a man hiding in a couple’s house to find proper evidence of subversive behavior. There were too many people who came to grab her and none of them were people she was ready to hit. She struggled at first, but ultimately gave in. Antine’s glasses shone in the dying sunlight, giving his already bizarrely proportioned face an even more uncanny tinge. She could not make out what emotion was on his face. Pity? Delight? It was impossible to know.

“Serafina Pavone, former Kingdom of Sicily, on the orders of the houses Bourbon and Savoy I arrest you for high treason.”

She was pulled out of her house by the arms and by her unbound hair into a waiting police carriage. She was not treated gently; her forehead hit against the reinforcements on the carriage roof. That was going to bruise, she mused, gently rubbing it as the door closed on her.

_It was three months ago. She had stolen her husband’s coat from the peg on the wall and snuck out through the maid’s door._

_Initially, she had been leaving just to feed Pepe. She hadn’t lied when she had told her husband that she was off to see his city. Pepe refused to leave the port; after taking him with them, he had found a pier and sat at it. He refused to come inside. Respecting stubbornness even in animals, Nina let him stay there._

_But on that day, she had seen a group of men shifting into a tiny salon. And on that day, she felt as if she were being pulled towards it._ Go with them _, whispered that tiny voice every nation had. History was in the making; it was part of her job description to be a part of it. Ignoring how it looked for a young woman to go running after a bunch of ragtag gentlemen, she did it anyway._

_“Good cousin, good cousin, come in,” the man greeted each man at the door. He halted upon seeing Serafina’s small frame and long hair. “And…who are you?”_

_“A simple Sicilian housewife, sir. And a friend.”_

Whoever put her in this cell in particular knew exactly what it took to make her shrivel up in fear because they immediately clamped irons to her wrists and ankles, perfectly fitting around the scars left from her childhood stint as a slave. She was at that level of terror and shock where nothing felt real; she fought against her own memories, trying to find some way where she could be innocent. Anything….anything to get her out of this cell and out of chains. She had no idea where she was; they had ultimately dropped curtains over the windows of the carriage to keep her from knowing. Maybe that was a good idea on their part; if she knew where she was, it might embolden her to escape.

Most who met Sicily personally would see a tantalizing young woman. She glittered, dazzled almost all foreigners who came across her; she was alluring and glamorous in how both young and ancient she was. She worked hard and sang like a lark while doing so. She was not big, but she was never minuscule.

People who walked by her prison cell saw a shivering, bruised, torn-up and terrified little girl in chains that were falling out of fashion.

The man who later came into Serafina’s cell was definitely not one of hers because he had no problem beating her after talking to her for thirty minutes. She did not tell him anything because, frankly, she did not know enough to tell him anything of use.

He kept asking.

“Who are the other _carbonari?_ ”

“Where are you meeting besides that ugly little tavern?”

“What are their plans?”

She kept quiet. Each question was punctuated by another boot in her ribs or a hand somehow in her face after she did not open her mouth for twenty seconds.

“Torture of prisoners…was banned in 1786 in Italy…and in 1808 in Spain,” she gasped in her native language, spitting out blood and feeling her ribs start to set back in place.

“That law is for humans. You are not one,” he said in a heavy foreign accent before he continued:

“How many of those men have you let fuck you?”

The dam broke. She lunged forward, spitting, roaring, _howling_ like a wild beast.

                                                                        ***

“Antonio, you are overreacting.”

“Francis, if you don’t tell me how to run my country, I won’t tell you how to run yours.”

The two empires--one dying, one dwindling-- were sitting next to each other in a parlor that will go unnamed.

“You’re going to make a martyr of her. No one on Earth has ever enjoyed seeing a love story end tragically.”

“She won’t _die_ from being executed.”

“The Neapolitans and Sicilians don’t know that. They’re going to see her dragged up by her hair to face the _garrote._ They’re going to see a sixteen-year-old girl get strangled for wanting to free her people from the clutches of the Spanish Empire, and the boy who loves her locked away in Madrid. There will be riots.”

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Maybe? _Maybe?_ I am always right, my dear Antonio. It is my favorite pastime.”

“What would you do if you were me?”

“Your territories are not used to kindness, _cher ami._ Perhaps show them some. Allow for a Constitution, perhaps? It might not be exactly what they want, but give them one anyway. Give them a taste, but not the whole spoonful.”

Antonio very uncharacteristically snorted.

“So I reward their bad behavior?”

“ _Quand-même_ , you’re going to ask me as a friend for my advice and then ignore it? You are in a _really_ bad state!”

“I would listen to you but what you’re saying doesn’t make any sense!”

“I’ve kept my territories longer than you have because I treat them like my children. I am their father, you’re working as a jailer! You’re losing your territories left and right! What is that that you’ve lost in the past ten years? Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile…it looks like you’re going to lose Peru too, no? You need to change your strategy. These Italian states, are they not like your children?”

Antonio looked back at him with a bemused expression.

“Are your colonies in the Orient _also_ your children? How about those provinces of yours in India? Do they feel lots of _fatherly_ love towards you?”

“It’s no worse than what _you_ have done and at least I’m not proud of what I’m doing over there. It’s not like I _want_ to—“

“Since the Revolution you keep acting like you’re some shining beacon of liberty and equality for the whole world to see. You’re just as bad as the rest of us. Call a spade a spade, Francis.”

Francis smiled right back at him.

“Fuck you, Antonio.”

“Fuck you too, Francis.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Salvatore felt the physical need to be with his people. It was now nearing twenty years that he had not seen the Maltese coastline. He ached, creaked, twisted at joints. He was a nation separated from his landmass: nothing more than an old ragdoll, splitting at the seams.

He was stumbling his way south, assuming that he still knew how to navigate and was using the stars directly. He had no idea where he was at this point. All he knew was that he was not in the colder parts of the Continent anymore and had to roll up his sleeves higher and higher every day. He still grew, perhaps at an unhealthy rate. He was aging quickly enough that one would almost think he had turned human.

He didn’t know how long he had been walking when he heard the singing. Craning his voice-starved ears, he could pick out a language.

Arabic.

Someone was singing in Arabic.

Salvatore’s strength returned to him as he bolted towards the noise, listening as he went. The hair covering his ears was flung back with the force of his movement, the _shush_ it made as he ran making it hard to hear the singer’s voice in particular. He ignored the way his sword practically seared into his flesh.

“Hello? Who is there? Someone? _Anyone?_ ”

The singing stopped. Salvatore continued, trying to summon Arabic to the front of his mind.

“Who are you?”

The singing started again.

_Sweet boy, so lost and alone,_

_Come lay by me._

_You are so far from home_

_But you will see your sun-specked shores_

_You are so close to where you need to be_

_You run and run for your home, but_

_All you will ever need_

_Is my embrace._

Salvatore had never felt romantic love before, but this soft, pliant female voice was stirring something inside of him that he had never experienced before. He _had_ to find her. Who was she? How did he know immediately who she was?

Who was she, exactly?

_She is everything I could possibly need._

 

The creature and her sister sat and waited, watching from the treetops.

“Do you really think this will work? The boy is clearly no normal human.”

“It has before, hasn’t it?” she murmured, shushing her sister impatiently. “Watch and learn, my dear.”

 

The singing started up again. Salvatore’s legs were burning as he ran desperately towards the voice, towards _any_ kind of possible contact with a person. He didn’t care if she were a human, or a nation, or…what else could she be other than those if she was speaking Arabic?

He eventually had to stop when he realized that his sword had actually burned a hole into his trousers. Kneeling at the foot of a tree, he closed his eyes and tried to pinpoint exactly where the voice was coming from…but he realized that the voice was actually impossible to pinpoint, almost enveloping him and his surroundings. _What on Earth…._

He made a fatal mistake. He looked up.

You would think that after all of his days as an English colony and after all of his exploits, being at the mercy of the supernatural would be something that would be uneventful for him.

It wasn’t.

The creature bared her fangs, beckoning her sister forward.

“You were right, my mistake,” she hissed, scuttling down the tree on all fours. “Dinner will be earlier than expected.”

Salvatore was not in the mood to be savaged by a beautiful woman who grew uglier by the minute.

“I do not hit girls,” he said quietly, wincing to himself as the phrase left his mouth. Were she here, his sister would have given him hell for that.

“We are not girls, boy. If you wish to fight for your life, then fight by all means. It makes it more fun. For us.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Serafina could not be with Salvatore at all not only due to her being imprisoned and many countries away, but because she had five men on top of her to keep her from fighting the sixth man hovering over her scalp. She knew from having seen him come in that he had a pair of rusty scissors. She would rather he just stab her with him then do what she thought he was about to do.

“There are lice in prison. It’s for your own good.”

“You are not. Touching my hair,” she gasped, wriggling and hissing at the added pressure from the other guards.

It was down to her waist, ink-black and impossibly curly. It was maybe the only part of her regular appearance that was vaguely fashionable. They could pry it from her cold, dead hands.

The prison door clanged open and all six guards jumped to attention. She lay on the floor, staring directly at the ceiling and letting the imprint of the stone burn into her brain.

All six guards left.

“You seem to be thriving,” Antine said coolly, squatting on the floor to block her tantalizing vision of the ceiling.

“ _Fuck you_. Do you have _any_ sense of familial loyalty?”

“I’m loyal to my crown.”

“This is the crown’s will, then? What about my trial, ah? Where’s my due process?”

“You know that’s not how that works here. Thanks for the confession that you believe in the abolishment of arbitrary imprisonment, though. That will be helpful in your trial.”

“I get a trial in the end? Wow, goodness me, I must have been _awfully_ good. So tell me, are you here to beat me up and imply I cheated on my husband too?”

“You sent that guard to the hospital.”

“I was going to be sent to my _grave_ if he kept that shit up.”

“Whatever.” Antine adjusted his glasses.

“Have… have you heard from Lovino?”

“He’s with Spain. He knows everything, because Antonio doesn’t believe in the art of the dramatic reveal. A real shame. I thought that Mom would have taught him how to do things properly, but I guess she changed a lot between me and Andria’s dad and Romulus.”

“That’s how it is with younger siblings,” she said, almost forgetting that she was in chains and wasn’t in jail at his request for a moment. But only for a moment. “Wait…did you just call him Andria?”

“He wants to be called that again instead of the name Francis picked out for him. I have to say, giving him a last name that meant _chin_ wasn’t exactly a…validating action on Francis’s part.”

She actually found herself laughing. _Damn it, you’re supposed to hate him._

“Look…Nina. It’s not up to me.”

Her laughter stopped and her eyes, leonine, moved to gaze at where his eyes should be.

“Yes it is.”


	13. Chapter 13

She didn’t know how much time had passed after that visit from Antine; the guards had started to leave her alone and she was left with maybe the worst punishment of all: herself.

Each time she looked at her chained, chafed wrists she flashed back to the slave markets in 140 BC, to when they chained her father and her and paraded them through the streets like animals. Then to not much later, when she was alone, naked, with her head shaved, on the selling block. Everyone wanted to see how much the Carthaginian princess was going to fetch. Everyone wanted to know if she would—

There was an uncharacteristic knock on the side of the prison door.

She laughed bitterly. “Come on in.”

Lovino’s face peered into the room and it was the closest she’d come to bursting into tears in a very long time.

“Who let you in here?” she managed to let out, pulse stuttering in her throat.

“Antonio went to the New World and…well, I needed to see you.”

She looked down at her feet, which were like the rest of her: rough and dirty. Wild-looking. Lovino, of course, was immaculately clean and well dressed. It had always been that way.

“Can I ask you something?”

“People are asking me a lot of things lately. Go ahead.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She gulped, eyes moving to her hands.

“Well…you’re quite…um…”

“What?” His voice had the slightest edge to it. She knew what that tone meant; he was very close to being angry with her. Not a good place to be in. “What am I, Nina?”

“You’re a Royalist. I’m sorry. I can’t see you ever being that level of critical towards Antonio. I didn’t know if I could—“

He started laughing. He was _laughing_ at her.

“What?”

“You should have _seen_ me on the first day Antonio locked me in his house. He told me I couldn’t go find Malta…I completely lost it. There was hell to pay, but I _did it._ ”

Serafina’s eyes lit up with something that could only be assumed to be pride.

“Did…I want details, Lovino. I have questions. Can I take notes?”

“It didn’t _do_ anything, though. I talk big but nothing is accomplished with just a scathing commentary. If anything, I think it made things worse. I thought telling him how I felt would change things since we’re so close. Or we were. I have no idea anymore. I feel like he’s keeping you here and me there just to…I don’t know.”

“So…Lovino, do you…”

“I don’t know if unifying the peninsula is the answer. Antonio said it would kill me, too? If you want to murder me, at least be more frank about it.”

“If I knew it was going to kill you, I wouldn’t do it. Especially not that backhanded of a way. I’d rather poison your coffee and look you in the eyes while you drink it.”

“You’ve put a concerning level of thought into this.”

She looked down, noticing that he was holding her hand. She grinned.

“Not as much as many other things,” she said before pausing. “They seem to think I’m the mastermind of the resistance, though, which I think is funny. I attended maybe three meetings. My main crime is reading a lot.”

“I think your main crime is probably other things, but I’m not going to tell you what they are because prison is for ruminating on your faults and you need something to do.”

“You sick son of a bitch.”

“ _Right?_ ”

She looked at the wall.

“I’m going to be executed. They’re going to find me guilty.”

“You’re going to come back though…a _garrote_ isn’t going to cut your damn head off. Your body will be intact and it’ll—“

Silence.

“Nina?”

“We’re the Kingdom of Two Sicilies.”

“Yes. That’s…that’s why we married.”

“We. _We._ One territory. Two of us.”

Lovino did not like where this was going.

“I never gave you a baby. There are two of us. If I die…Lovino, if I die I don’t think I’m coming back. You’ll inherit my territory.”

His other hand moved to her chin, moving his face so that he could look her directly in the eye.

“Yes, you are. You have to. You are going to live. Do not leave me. You cannot _fucking_ leave me hanging like that.”

“It’s not up to me. We’ll see what the courts say.”

He got a look in his eyes that Nina didn’t know if she liked or disliked.

“So wait…”

“It’s not negotiable, I’m standing trial no matter how many strings you pull.”

“No, no, that’s not what I mean. If…you said that you never gave me a baby.”

“No, I never did. To my knowledge. But I would think I’d notice something like that, you know?”

He rolled his eyes.

“I mean…I know back when privateering was more of a thing…when I was off with Antonio on ships, yeah? There were female pirates, and when they were arrested they could…um…plead their bellies.”

“I’m not pregnant.”

Lovino looked simultaneously amused and horrified at the sentence coming out of his mouth.

“I could fix that.”

She looked down at herself, then back at him, then at the filthy prison cell while her nose crinkled in disgust.

“It’s not happening. Not on these floors, anyway. They’re not going to care if I have a baby in me, Lovino. They want me to die.”

She looked back over at him, smirking.

“But are you really that desperate for a lay?”

She allowed herself to laugh at seeing him cover his face with his hands to hide how red he was turning.

“I’m just trying to help…”

“I know you are.”

“…If we unify Italy, I die. If we don’t, you die. Nina…can I just say that if you die I’ll never forgive you?”

Her gaze softened.

“I’m sorry.”

There was a commotion outside.

“I should go.”

He kissed her, long and achingly, before he got up and moved to the exit. He turned around before he was out the door.

“Serafina Pavone-Vargas-Whatever-The-Hell-Your-Last-Name-Actually-Is-Now?

“Yes?”

Hesitation.

“Do you hate me? Please be honest.”

No hesitation from the Sicilian.

“No. Never have, never will.”


	14. Chapter 14

Harbinger dragged on the ground like a gravedigger’s shovel. Salvatore had never met these types of creatures before; it had been surprising to him that they bled purple. His sword looked like it was covered in wine, glistening in whatever light remained from the day.

He genuinely felt like he was about to die; he was ready to drop his sword and dissolve right then and there. He slumped down under a tree, his body dropping like a discarded doll. The roots, twisting just above the dirt, dug into the uncovered backs of his legs. _I need to rest. Give me just a moment…I need to rest. Let me rest._

The sword in his hands did not hum or heat up. It remained cold and…dared he say it? Lifeless.

He was lifeless.

“I need to go home,” Salvatore breathed. “I…need…to go…home.”

Visions of the coast near Valletta, and the nearly forgotten sound of his dog barking, and the forests he had explored as a little boy filled his mind.

“I need…to go…home. I need to go…home. I need to go home…”

His legs curled underneath him. Before he knew how, even when he thought he hadn’t the energy, he was springing back forward.

“I need to go home.”

He put his sword back in its sheath, staggering forward before dropping into a jog.

“I need to go home!”

He managed to break out of the forest, stumbling to look down a cliff face. He fell to his knees, looking out in front of him. The cliff was jagged, the same angry red as a sunburn. Trees jutted out of the valley like pustules, scarring and twisting the rocks with their roots. And finally, a river coursed its way below. A _river. Water._

Salvatore practically rolled down the cliff’s edge to get at the river. _If there’s a river, it goes to the ocean. And if it goes to the ocean, it will take me home._

For the second time on his long, arduous journey, he jumped directly into the water. The cold hit his senses and he began to swim. He knew that if he walked at the bank, he would never make it. His legs were not strong enough right now to carry his entire weight.

_I need to get home._

He started to hear the murmur of his own people in his ears.

_Home._

He didn’t know where it was…but he was going to get home. It was what he was made to do.

**********************

Antine was left to his own devices and properly and uncharacteristically seated in a chair at Antonio’s house. In front of him was a proper bottle of _hierbas_ he had nicked from the bottom shelf. Antonio did not drink much since the height of his empire. Antine frankly did not give a fuck and profited greatly off of the unopened gifts of liquor sent from around the world.

“Babysitting duty?” called a voice from behind him. The Neapolitan accent gave him away completely.

“It’s not like that,” avowed the Sardinian, pouring himself another glass. “I’m here to meet with Antonio’s boss and they didn’t want me to stay at an inn. Has absolutely nothing to do with you.”

“Drinking alone, too?”

“Playing a drinking game.”

“By yourself?”

“Yes. It’s called liver failure,” he said dryly, downing the glass in one go. “I suggest you don’t play.”

“Of course I’m going to play.”

“I’m not sharing. Get your own damn bottle.”

In hindsight, that was a foolish thing to tell his mainland friend…because Lovino managed to find an entire bottle of gin.

“What the hell is this?”

“It’s called gin and it’s a headache in a bottle. Don’t drink it.”

“I’m going to drink it.”

Antine did not like the look on Lovino’s face.

“You’re not drinking that whole bottle, kid. You’ll kill yourself.”

“Maybe I will. I have a big liver and I’m here to win.”

Antine snorted. Lovino stuck the bottle between his legs, sitting next to Antine while unscrewing the bottle unceremoniously.

“Don’t die.”

“I can’t.”

“Do you like…do you ever wish?”

Lovino’s head jerked up to look at the Piedmontese’s expressionless face.

“Do you?”

“No I mean…I was being facetious. Sort of.”

“I’m not drunk enough to talk about you dying. Or any of us, for that matter, both in or out of the room.”

Antine let the weight of Lovino’s words hang on him like a lead apron before he spoke.

“I swear, I’m sure most humans would kill to have this job, but I could never do it sober.”

“Have you ever _been_ sober?”

“Yes. Once. It was many, many years ago. I wouldn’t recommend it; I don’t know how those Temperance people in the United States do it.”

“I struggle to understand the _concept_ of the Americans, really.”

“That surprises me,” said Antine, turning to gaze at Lovino right when he choked and wheezed on his first ever gulp of gin. “How does it taste?”

“Like…like…I don’t…do people enjoy this in other…what?”

“Yep. That means it’s good gin.”

“This is _good_??!!”

“If you get drunk enough, nothing tastes like anything. That’s how I do half of my bureaucratic work,” he mused, downing more _hierbas_.

Lovino took another long gulp of the gin, blinking back tears and looking close to dry heaving.

“If I drink enough of this, will it burn my sins away?”

“No, that’s everclear.”

Lovino coughed out a laugh, wiping his mouth.

“What’s the meeting about?”

“We both know what it’s about.”

“She gets a trial?”

“Barely.”

“Antine, she didn’t do anything—“

“Yes, she did. She knows she did. We both know she did. You just don’t want her to face the consequences, which is understandable but frankly….fuck. Frankly, Lovino, since she’s your wife, you should actually be facing a sentence too. I managed to bend them a bit…they wanted both of you to face trial and/or execution. The idea was that if a _sweet, innocent girl_ like Serafina was wrapped up in it, it was because you were too. I could debate your innocence and I did, but there was nothing I could do with her. She dug her own gr—uh, I mean…sorry, bad wording—“

“Antine, is she gonna die?”

“I mean if she—“

“No, I mean _die._ ”

Antine shrugged.

“She knows what she’s in for.”

“You’re awfully cavalier about all of this,” he said, gin making him a bit bolder. He squinted. “She’s your cousin.”

Antine pursed his lips, swirling his dessert wine in his glass. “Life finds a way, you know? Maybe it’s her time. I don’t want to fuck with the course of history just to keep my kid cousin safe.”

“I would.”

“You’re also a lot more willing to fuck your whole life up for a principle.”

“I am not—“

“Are fucking too. You’d sell your damn _soul_ if it meant that some cause or ideal of yours were advanced. I have no idea where you get the fucking energy to keep going with that bullshit. I guess it’s just how much younger you are than me. You’re near fetal.”

“It’s funny because I’m two thousand years old.”

That somehow got Antine’s funny bone, because the Piedmontese’s face cracked into a giant smile and peals of laughter echoed around the parlor. He figured it was the liquor.

“Are you still planning on fucking off to Norway to find your half brother?”

“That won’t happen; Antonio’s tapping into where I am more and more these days. He won’t leave me alone, not even in my own fucking head. I fucking hate it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Has he ever done that to you? Like, projected into your head like that, I mean?”

“Plenty, especially when I was younger. But I guess I started behaving more and he stopped. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your spine for your sanity.”

Lovino took another gulp of gin, eyes streaming.

“I think the people who make it are the ones who have both.”

“What, both spine and sanity?”

“Yeah.”

“Hey. I’m going to ask you a question and you’re speaking to me. Not my government. To me, about a personal opinion. Will you answer truthfully?”

“I…I mean I can’t say no, Antine.”

The Piedmontese man shrugged his narrow shoulders, adjusting his glasses.

“If you could become independent. Like right now. Would you?”

“Bloodlessly or would it require me to revolt?”

“Assume the latter.”

“I…honestly?”

“Yeah. No jail time. Cross my heart, swear on my mother’s grave, clench my asshole, all that good shit.”

“Gross. But why are you asking?”

“I’m asking because I’m curious and I know I won’t remember your answer after I finish this bottle. I want to have the satisfaction of asking without living with your answer. And also because you’re not going to remember your answer, or me asking, when you are finished with that gin.”

“Okay.”

“So?”

Lovino took another swig, swallowed, and took a deep breath.

“I would. I would rebel right now. Immediately. The longer I spend here the more I feel like I’m being eaten full of holes.”

“What, like _casu marzu_?”

“Don’t say its name, I’m trying to repress the memory that it exists.”

“It’s tasty if you get past the part where it’s also alive.”

“ _Stop._ ”

Antine got another kick out of watching Lovino squirm at the reference to his favorite and somewhat wriggly food.

“What about you, Antine?”

“Hm?”

“Would you be free?”

Antine’s smile faded.

“I’m not gone enough to answer that question. I will never be gone enough to answer that question.”

“It wouldn’t be hard for you, Antine. You’re an island. You have money. Sheep. Other things.”

“Yeah, that whole independence worked really well for the Scots. They also had an economy of sheep-and-other-things.”

“Sardo, you…you know what you’re worth, right?”

Antine’s brow arched, a calculated gesture with a calculated response.

“Do tell.”

“Why don’t you ever question why Spain has you around doing his runaround work? You’re valuable. He wants to…I don’t know, Antine. There has to be some reason why you’re spit-shining his shoes and he’s off fucking—“

“It’s a family thing. He’s my half brother, Lovino.”

“No, that doesn’t give him an excuse to treat you like _shit._ Don’t you think he might keep you in his shadow just because he doesn’t want to be outshone by you when you step out of it? Isn’t that what Francis is doing to your brother?”

“Lovino—“

“Andria got out from under Francis and conquered all of fucking Continental Europe. He’s not even half of the guy you are.”

Lovino’s arm reached out, his hand grabbing at Antine’s bicep.

“I can’t wait to see what you end up doing.”

Antine’s lips turned up into a smile.

“Thanks.”

Lovino got up to go and stumbled, face planting into another chair.

“You need to practice walking while drunk. It’s for my sake more than yours. No one likes a low-functioning alcoholic, Lovino.”

“Fuck off.”

“Never.”

They exchanged a pair of conspiratorial grins before Lovino wandered off, overcorrecting his gait in a way that made Antine start laughing again.

“Remember how much you matter, _asshole_.”

“When you remember how much you do, _fucker._ ”


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sardonic (adjective): grimly mocking or cynical. Derisive, caustic.
> 
> Origin: mid 17th century: from French sardonique, earlier sardonien, via Latin from Greek sardonios ‘of Sardinia’, alteration of sardanios, used by Homer to describe bitter or scornful laughter.

_The year was 1519 and Hernan Cortes had just landed on the shores of the New World._

_Most of his crew was human. Two were decidedly not._

_While soldiers would come and go from the carnage of the Old Aztec Empire, Antonio and his accomplice more or less stayed._

_Antonio got his first real taste of blood. Antonio hacked, beat, raped and pillaged. Antonio liked it._

_Antine watched._

_People starved; Native women had their children ripped from their breasts and killed in front of them._

_Antine watched._

_Antonio spread illnesses to the Native population. Indigenous people lay on their backs, dead before they knew they were dying._

_Antine watched._

_The religions of the Aztecs were replaced with crucifixes; anyone practicing their initial, heathen rituals was punished with death or mutilation._

_Antine watched._

_Antonio moved his scope north, east, west. He was practically everywhere in the New World at once; he murmured “Glory, God and gold” to himself the same way priests said their Hail Mary._

_Antine watched._

_Cities fell, people died, Antonio and his brother Adão conquered and civilized._

_Antine watched. Antine was always watching._

The trial room was full of Bourbon and Savoy low gentry; Antine and Lovino sat amongst them while Antonio sat near the judges, silently cleaning dirt out from under his nails with a small knife. Antine was watching. Romano was sweating.

The door opened, with Serafina submitting to the grip of two guards. She was in chains, filthy, and one of her eyes was blackened. Her unblackened eye shone brightly through her tangled black hair.

“Serafina Pavone Vargas?” the judge read off from his case file.

“I am she,” she said quietly.

Antine glanced over at Lovino, gently nudging him to get him to stop holding his breath.

“Do you, as a prisoner, recognize the following charges brought against you? You are being charged with high treason for plotting against the Crown, possession of contraband, and adultery.”

Her dark skin began to grey. Antine’s eyebrows arched, quietly crossing his arms.

“I recognize and confess to the charge of possession of contraband, sir. I am not guilty of treason nor adultery.”

The judge looked over at an unseen man at the witness table.

“The floor is yours, sir.”

A thin, well-dressed man of about thirty-seven appeared in the public eye. Lovino almost immediately wanted to punch him.

“I wish to address the _honorable_ Señora Vargas.”

Serafina’s face twisted into a bitter smile, with a look that implied that she goddamn wished he would, just try her, she could do this all day, _punk_.

“You may,” said the judge.

“Señora, who is your husband?”

“A Señor Vargas, as my surname would suggest.”

A ripple of laughter made its way through the jury.

“Order!”

The prosecutor continued.

“There was an incident with a guard when you were first brought in.”

“Yes.”

“Can you explain to the jury what happened?”

She gulped, not knowing whether to speak or vomit.

“He asked me if any of the revolutionaries had…taken me. So I broke his arm and nearly strangled him.”

“Did your husband ever discipline or beat you?”

She briefly glanced up at Lovino, making eye contact with her one good eye before responding.

“He wouldn’t dare.”

More pairs of eyebrows shot up upon other foreheads.

“So he never exercised control over you?”

“He never did with sticks or a belt—“

“So if I understand you correctly, your husband never physically asserted himself as your lord and master during your marriage?”

“I do not see how whether or not my husband made a habit of beating me has anything to do with whether or not I would willingly betray him and the Crown.”

Murmurs. She knew who her audience was and cast her gaze down, continuing plaintively.

“The only “lords and masters” who ever beat me were the ones in this prison, sir, who bruised my face and kicked me in the belly…because of this treatment, I may never be able to give my husband a child.”

An absolute uproar.

“ _Order!”_

“Señora Vargas, I have heard from your neighbors that you enjoyed going out late at night. Is this true?”

“I would go out to the pier to feed my brother’s dog.”

“Your brother?”

“Salvatore. He has gone missing, and his dog still waits for him at the pier.”

“So you go to the shipyards?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Without a chaperone?”

“I have no need for a chaperone, sir.”

“Is that where you first saw the revolutionaries?”

“…yes, sir. They were going into a tavern.”

“Why did you go after them?”

“I was curious, sir. And I went to listen after because it interested me.”

“It is not proper of a married woman to go to a tavern.”

“Neither is it proper of a gentleman to question a lady’s honor, sir.”

Stifled laughter shuffled into earshot from the bench and the jury’s box.

“The books we found in your residence. Are they yours or your husband’s?”

_They want me to blame Lovino._

“They are mine, sir. The books are mine; I confessed to that already.”

“Are you even literate?”

Lovino had to stifle a small chuckle at seeing his wife physically struggle with swallowing her words.

“Yes. I taught my husband how to read when we were children,” she said softly.

“So you confirm that you obtained these anti-clerical and traitorous texts yourself?”

“Yes, sir. I already did to the judge just a few moments prior.”

“Where did you buy these books?”

Here she faltered. “Many were gifts.”

“Gifts? From whom?”

“I—“

“For example,” he postulated, going back to the table and picking up her beloved copy of Rousseau’s _Du contract social_ , “In the cover of this book, just in the corner, a name is written, and I do not believe it is yours. I saw it in many of the confiscated books.”

The man adjusted his glasses, squinting at the neatly printed lettering on the inside of the book’s cover.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Antine breathed.

“Francis Bonnefoy? Who is this Francis Bonnefoy?”

“He’s a friend. A very dear friend of mine; he lent the book to me.”

“A _very dear_ friend? And a foreigner? Is he a book-lender by trade?”

“No, sir—“

“What is he?”

She looked to Antonio, desperate for aid. He did not give any.

“He…he is a poet.”

More whispering could be heard, this time not in her favor.

_Fuck, you should have just said barrel-maker._

“So a French poet has been lending you books for no reason other than friendship? And not just any books, but books that are very hard to come by in our kingdom?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You do know the punishment for lying under oath, Señora?”

Her cheeks darkened.

“I am well aware, sir. And knowing the consequences of lying, I tell the truth when I say that I would never betray my husband.”

The prosecutor snorted before turning to the judge and the jury.

“This woman is not trustworthy. She is dark of mind, body and heart, shifty-eyed, and has openly admitted to wandering the Neapolitan shipyards at night. She nearly killed a man with her bare hands and had to be brought out in chains like a _slave_ —“

She flinched.

“—because of this. She has admitted to a long-standing correspondence with a French poet, who gives her books she cannot afford. If those are not lover’s tokens, I do not know what they are. These are not the traits of chaste, honest, honorable women. Her husband sounds to be heavily cuckolded, and most likely does not hit her out of shame in his own masculinity. She admitted to contraband, yes, but she is clearly lying about not being guilty of adultery. As a result, I can only imagine she is lying about her lack of involvement in the plot of high treason as well.”

A bead of sweat coursed down the valley of Lovino’s spine.

“I rest, your Honor.”

“The jury is dismissed to discuss. We will reconvene when the jury has made their decision.”

The low gentry-folk began to shuffle out of the courtroom.

“Wait,” hissed Lovino, turning to look at Antine. “There’s no defense for her?”

“The Crowns decided it would not be prudent.”

“What the _fuck_ is that supposed to mean?”

“She’s being tried as a human, not as a nation. Her defense would have had to be that of a nation’s. Didn’t you think it was strange that the nobles here are all nobles who don’t know who we are? That’s why.”

“Can she ask for a trial by combat?”

“That’s a good question, Lovino, but here’s another one: Are you _fucking_ insane?”

“Does it matter what the jury says?”

“The jury can weigh in, but it’s up to the judge.”

“Antine, she’s going to die.”

“A charge of adultery won’t kill her—“

“That’s not what I’m worried about. I know she isn’t fucking Francis. If anything, we will laugh about that in two years’ time. It’s that he just told the jury to not believe a word she says.”

Antine’s mouth screwed shut.

Serafina sat in the middle of the floor. Lovino had never seen her look so afraid. It made him afraid by proxy.

“Can I go to her?”

The doors banged back open. The judge came at the very end of the procession, holding a sheet of paper.

"Not anymore." 

“We, the assigned members of the jury to the case of Señora Serafina Pavone Vargas…”

Serafina’s hearing began to swim.

“…on the crimes of high treason and possession of contraband...guilty. On the crime of adultery, not guilty. Señora Serafina Pavone Vargas, for your crimes against the state, you are sentenced to death by _garrote._ “

*************

They were good to her, she thought as she was carried away. At least they somehow knew she was a good wife.

They at least had the decency of letting her execution be in her native Palermo instead of the foreign, terrifying jungle that was Madrid. They moved her by boat, not letting her see where exactly she was going or on deck. She stayed in the brig, knowing that she was going home, even if just for a little while.

In hindsight, she was almost upset with how she didn’t own up to her involvement with the revolutionaries; she had stood up on tables herself and given speeches about what it meant to be Italian. Her father always said that the best way to test someone’s loyalty was to have them at the point of a sword and listen to what they tell you. She supposed that she was not a proper revolutionary, then, for having distanced herself in the courtroom. She felt sorry for them, especially the leaders. All of them were so young and inexperienced…and their strange, almost Spanish-sounding accents. They all talked like Antine.

Antine himself, along with Romano and Antonio, were mandated to come watch her die. They were not on her boat; they took a separate one that put them on the island a good two days after she had arrived. It was decided that Antine, as the man who had brought her to justice in the first place, would be a member of the group of four that made sure that the execution went off without a hitch. Antonio would watch from a balcony with the Royal Guard, and Lovino would watch from the castle window with two Guardsmen at each side of him.

Serafina’s cell in Palermo let her see a strip of her home’s brilliantly blue sky through the bars. If she could strain her head enough, she could see young soldiers crushing melons in the metal embrace of the _garrote_ being set up in her honor. She stopped looking out the window. She spent her last night on earth dreaming of the baby brother she had not seen in two decades. She hoped that she could watch over him in heaven…at least, if she was going there in the first place.

**********

“The last necklace she’ll ever wear,” said one guard darkly on the way to her execution.

Sicily was nearly three thousand years old. 2,570 years under her belt, and she still was not ready to leave. She still had to grow old, she still needed to fulfill her promise to her father and go to the moon. She still needed to see the far north and challenge the Dane again, this time on his home territory, just for old time’s sake. She still had to have her five children and name them all after the –

_Thunk._

They had arrived. Serafina was having palpitations. _Why aren’t you fighting back? Why are you going along with this so easily, like a goat to the slaughter? Do you want to die? Is that what you’ve wanted all along?_

Her father’s voice kept echoing, warning between her ears:

_You must not be prey, my love._

She came on to the platform, where Antine and two other members of the Royal Guard were waiting. Antine was peeling an apple. She opened her mouth to say something to him, but had forgotten entirely how to speak. A crowd of locals, many speaking with that funny Spanish-sounding accent, had begun to gather.

Her hair was roughly gathered up by one of the guards, tying it into a topknot with a piece of cord.

“They should have cut it.”

“I wouldn’t let them.”

The device was still open, showing off the uncovered, vulnerable skin of her neck. If you looked closely, you could see how quick and shallow her breathing was. The linen wrap covered her eyes, lest they burst from the _garrote_ ’s pressure. It clanged shut, locking into place, and she started breathing even faster.

_Clikclikclikclik…_

The _garrote_ was doing what it was made for, tightening viciously around her neck. Eventually it would crush her larynx, making it impossible to breathe and finally killing her.

Antine was watching. Antine was tired of watching.

He took the apple he was peeling, weighing it gently in one hand before bashing the guard next to him in the face with it. The other took a peeling knife to the eye and the neck. He rushed the guard at the back before unlocking Serafina’s collar.

“ _Liberdàdde,_ ” he mumbled to himself as he cut his cousin’s blindfold and the tie holding her hands together. “ _LIBERDÀDDE!”_ he shouted in his funny-sounding Spanish accent as she stumbled forward, gasping for air.

“ ** _LIBERDÀDDE!”_** called back the Piedmontese in the crowd as Antine saw his half-brother and the Royal Guard descend rapidly from where they were sitting, moving as quickly as possible to the platform. He could not see Lovino.

 ** _“LIBERDÀDDE!”_** the Piedmontese repeated as they made like their fellow Sardinian and pulled out their peeling knives, jumping on the Royal Guard members. By the time Antonio had carved his way through the crowd, Antine and his cousin had vanished into the crowd.

********

“You take this horse and you go as far as you can.”

“Antine—“

“See if you can get passage onto a boat; if you can make it to a different country, even. Try Greece. Your brother might help you—“

“Antine—“

“I’m going to go undercover too, see if I can get Lovino out—“

“ANTINE.”

He stopped.

“Why did you go against your brother like that?”

He paused, wiping his nose and adjusting his glasses.

“I guess I just decided that it was time for us to be united and independent. And we can’t be anything without you, Sicily. Now get lost,” he said, giving the horse a firm swat on the rear. The horse dropped quickly into a trot, its rider swiveling around to look back at her cousin.

Antine had turned around and started to run. Antine was done watching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN on Sardinian:
> 
> Liberdadde - liberty


	16. Chapter 16

Salvatore was now on his back, floating down the river with his eyes closed. What was it that his mother had told him?

_…be careful of those who sing sweet nothings; they will never do what they say so beautifully._

She was talking about those creatures. He wanted to call them Sirens, but he was pretty sure Sirens had to be near bodies of water. Then again, he thought, there was nothing saying that a Siren couldn’t be a river Siren, or that she could leave the water she stayed next to?

He was no mythology expert.

So if what his mother had said came true, then what about what his father said, about cattle and about the two sides?

Something brushed against his side. He turned and looked into a pair of lifeless, unseeing blue eyes. The body was inexplicably floating in the opposite direction Salvatore was floating in, almost as if propelled forward by some unseen force.

Crying out in shock and then silencing himself, Salvatore dragged the corpse out of the water to get a better look at him. The man was thickly built, almost out of stone. His hair was closely cropped to a well-shaped skull and he had sharp, birdlike features. Salvatore reached to gently close his eyes with his fingers.

The dead man’s hand snapped up to grab Salvatore’s wrist, letting go when he had to cough up and vomit water. Salvatore gave him his space.

“…Even though you are same brown, I am…to go by assumption…that you are not a Turk, since if you were you would have killed me?”

Salvatore nodded.

“I am Maltese, sir. Who are you?”

“You can call me Boro. I am a Serb. But I am confused. I drowned.”

“I dragged you out of the water myself. You’re alive.”

Malta wasn’t sure if Boro was a nation, a human, or if he was in the tumultuous process of becoming one or the other. Malta had only ever been a nation, but he had heard of others going through the process who had previously been human. It did not sound pleasant to him; perhaps that was what was happening to his new companion?

“Your name?”

Salvatore hesitated before telling the Serb to call him Sasà, it being one of the few times he would allow a man who wasn’t related him to use his nickname. The man had just died, for heaven’s sake.

“How far away am I from that _thing_?”

“What thing?”

“Come with me.”

~~

Serafina was accustomed to crime. Murders aside, she had stolen her share of food off of mule-driven carts and had cheated her way through her share of dice and card games. But throwing as many _piastre_ as her hands could hold at an innkeep and giving him a fake name to book a room under was something she was unused to.

“And I’ll have a bath, sir.”

_A bath._

“I usually require people to pay for baths to be drawn…but you need it more than anyone I’ve ever seen,” said the countryman. “What on Earth happened to you?”

She hesitated while speaking in her native tongue for the first time in months.

“I was falsely accused of adultery, sir.” No Sicilian would dare turn out a wronged housewife, no matter how disheveled. “I escaped. I think they’re looking for me.”

“Come this way, Signora Caltagirone,” he beckoned, using the fake name she had put down. He was lighting a lantern and hanging it in the hallway. “My wife will be up in the evening with the hot water. You will be safe here.”

She figured his ease at taking her in was influenced by the way humans seemed to instinctively want to aid their respective nation. This was one of the few times where she was not about to question it.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Any time, Signora,” he said, brown eyes crinkling with a smile.

The bed was small but better than anything Serafina had touched since her arrest. The skin around her ankles and wrists was bleeding; she contemplated ripping up her sleeve to daub at the wounds, but decided against it, given that she was trying to present herself as an honest woman. She was surprised they had even let her wear the dress she’d been taken in and not executed her in her slip. But the wounds would not dress themselves. What could she do about them before they got infected?

She looked over at the small fireplace, the poker still stuck in amongst the embers.

_No. You mustn’t, you won’t heal properly, you’ll just make it worse and then where will you be?_

_I will be tending to my wounds the natural way and not arousing suspicion,_ she concluded, grabbing the hot poker and putting the glowing end up to the raw skin. She bit back a shriek and settled for hissing curses through her teeth, listening to the skin on her ankle start to sizzle. She learned her lesson and grabbed a towel to bite, cauterizing the wounds on her feet before moving on to her wrists. If only she could do something about the smell…

~~

Salvatore had never seen anything like it. On one side of the river was a monstrous whirlpool, its very existence redirecting and scrambling the current of the river. On the other side, on the banks and in the water itself, was a pack of colossal wolves. Judging from the way shreds of cloth that resembled Boro’s shirt were stuck in their teeth and how blood adorned the ruffs of their necks and the silver of their muzzles, Boro’s friends had not been lucky.

The riverbank behind the whirlpool was practically nonexistent and was more semblative of a cliff. The riverbank with the wolves, however, was flat and easily crossable if it were not for the wolves themselves.

“Which bank would you go on?” said Boro apprehensively, scanning the scene for any sign of his allies. There were none.

“Which did you pick?” asked the Maltese boy, just as at a loss as the Serb.

“The whirlpool. All my other…my comrades all picked the wolves.”

“Are you the only one that survived, then?”

“It appears so,” he said, wiping his eyes with a large hand. “They were all very young.”

Both Salvatore and Boro observed a moment of silence for Boro’s dead comrades.

“Are those the only wolves?”

“Saza, please do not—“

“Did more come from the shadows, Boro?”

“No, but—“

“Then I can take them.” He unsheathed his sword. “I will kill the wolves, and you will have safe crossing. That cliff is impossible to scale. You fell, didn’t you?”

“You will die.”

Salvatore looked up, steely grey eyes meeting ice blue ones.

“I will succeed.”

He reached into his shirt, pulled out the crucifix dangling from a chain around his neck, and kissed it.

“I have had and fought worse for much less of a cause.”

~~

Even though it was thought to be impossible, Antine was about to be having perhaps a worse time than both his cousins combined.

“Two _piastre_ for your clothes,” he said, wincing at the fat sailor in front of him as he adjusted the collar on his favorite suit.

“What?”

“You heard me. Two _piastre_ for your clothes and you can have mine.”

The sailor snorted.

“That suit for only two _piastre_? You must be out of your mind.”

“Perhaps.”

Antine walked out of the deal with a sweat-drenched cap, linen shirt, rope belt, and trousers, and the sailor got Antine’s cherished matched wool suit and a beautifully embroidered cravat.

Not fifteen minutes later, Antine stood in front of a dingy mirror in a tavern, holding a pair of scissors near identical to the ones that had threatened Serafina’s hair not a few weeks before.

 _Ssssnip._ He held his ponytail in his hands.

 _Snip, snip, snip._ He evened out as best he could with whatever he had in front of him.

He looked in the mirror, the waves of hair he had prided himself on (although considered highly unfashionable at this period) now a shaggy mop that fell just at the nape of his neck. He took off his glasses, hiding his eyes meticulously with his bangs. _This will do for now._

He was glad he had stopped himself from forgoing his glasses and also cutting off _all_ of his hair, as a shaved head and such pretty, _pretty_ eyes like the ones he had would only tell people that he was a catamite. He was not ready to be flamboyantly gay in a port town and he didn’t think he ever would be.

He walked back out into the port and breathed in the sea air. When the air was this tinged with tobacco, wine, and swear words he could almost mistake it for home. When was the last time he had seen Cagliari? He didn’t even know anymore; he spent so much time in other territories that he started to wonder if he should just be called a _Savoyard_ instead of _Sardo_.

He had never been the ocean-going type. He was a mountain man; it absolutely baffled the rest of his family. Looking at the ships and the way they pitched forward and back already made his stomach churn.

He still had enough _piastre_ after giving most of them to his cousin to buy his way onto a boat to Lombardy. That should get him far enough, no?

Four more _piastre_ he spent on a dagger. His peeling knife was only going to get him so far, especially now that he was known for using it. He had left his proper knife at home in favor of looking more civilized in Spanish courts.

He was just walking out and strapping the dagger onto his belt when he saw four Royal men ride in with their swords drawn.

_Fuck, did they somehow follow me? Can’t be, they’re probably just checking the perimeter._

One of the riders came towards him.

“We’re looking for a man about your height and build with long black hair and glasses. He would have a Sardinian accent. Seen him?”

“No, sorry,” said Antine, mimicking Antonio’s Castilian lilt perfectly. “There may be someone similar on a boat to Naples, though. I heard someone speak of a scholarly type like that at the tavern over there.”

“Thank you, sir, for your time—“

Antine’s eyes were locked on one of the other Guardsmen, who was accosting the fat sailor wearing Antine's cravat and a much lower quality top hat. By the time the fat sailor had pointed in Antine’s direction to indicate whom he had bought the incriminating article of clothing from, Antine had vanished onto one of the boats.

 _Let’s see…_ thought Antine, racing through the galley and up flights of stairs, _I’ve freed a woman who has actively worked against the state, I am running from justice, I am trapped, I’m surrounded, and I have…two knives.”_

The boat then began to sway further, indicating that it had in fact left port and he was definitely staying on it.

_This boat better be owned by a friend._

He slammed a cabin door open and then shut it just as quickly, bracing himself against the frame before turning around to see that he was in the captain’s quarters of none other than Arthur Kirkland.

“Jesus power-bottoming _Christ_ —“

“Good to see you too,” said Arthur coolly. “You should really knock, though.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing in my cabin?”

“Hiding.”

“You don’t strike me as the type to play _cache-cache_ , especially on a ship that is decidedly _not yours,_ ” Arthur probed, his accent in French still just as bad as it was before.

“I’m hiding from the Spanish Guard because I freed my cousin before they could murder her.”

A third person came into the room.

“Sir, three Spaniards have taken a dinghy from the port and are requesting to board. They’re saying something about a fugitive.”

Arthur’s darkly colored eyebrows flexed briefly in recognition.

“Let them on board. We have nothing to hide.”

The door closed.

“You have thirty seconds to give me a reason as to why I shouldn’t hand you over.”

Antine grinned.

“Because you hate my brother more than you hate me or my cousin.”

Arthur exhaled loudly through his nose, actively displeased at what he was about to do.

“You’re right. Damn it. Get in that trunk.”

The lanky Sardinian folded himself into the trunk like an accordion and Arthur shut the lid almost entirely. It opened just enough that he could see a strip of the room and get some air. Two of the guardsmen and one other man in _merino_ wool trousers appeared in the room.

_Shit. I know those pants._

“I’m looking for my brother,” said Antonio, clearly the only person in the room looking the Englishman directly in the eye. Arthur was sat primly at his desk with steepled fingers.

“Which brother?”

“Savoy. Piedmont.”

“I don’t have him,” Arthur chirped.

“I don’t believe you.”

Arthur feigned a gasp. “Are you calling me a _liar_?”

“To your face? Absolutely.”

“While you’re absolutely right and have no reason to believe me at all, consider this. Do you really think someone like Piedmont would be stupid enough to come onto an English ship?”

“I…” Hearing Antonio falter made Antine have to bite his bottom lip keep from laughing. “Point taken.”

“Look elsewhere. Or mind your business. Pick one.”

Antine could see the Spanish Guard and Antonio start to shuffle out of the cabin.

“Send my regards to Cardozo while you’re at it, Carriedo. He’s the only one of you who’s worth any modicum of my time. Ta.”

The door closed for the second time. Waiting a good half a minute, Arthur finally came and opened the trunk.

“Are you going to tell me what you’re doing in Sicily, then?” Antine said, unrumpling his filthy shirt.

“While you all have been navel-gazing about _liberty_ what it means to be a truly _enlightened_ I have been looking for that cousin you all seem to have forgotten.”

Antine squinted incredulously at the Englishman behind his bangs.

“Maybe Serafina would have been out searching in Norway if you had sent that notice to her five years earlier. You know, when you actually wrote it?”

“She probably would have put it all aside and dropped everything to help me as well if you hadn’t _put her in prison_.”

That shut him up for a matter of fifteen seconds.

“Any luck on your own, then?”  
“No. He’s not dead, though. I can tell that much.”

“So where are we off to?”

“The source of all nonsense stories like this,” he said. “You can’t lose a person for five years without it having something to do with _Greece.”_


	17. Chapter 17

Francis was smirking at Antonio over a glass of cognac. He had been saving the bottle for a moment like this. Not exactly this situation in _particular_ , but a situation where he could sip it triumphantly out of a crystal glass in front of someone he had outfoxed. Marcel—oh, excuse him _deeply_ —Andria was sitting behind the Frenchman wearing an uncharacteristically meek expression.

“I really don’t see what you want me to say about this, Toni.”

“Why books?”

“She likes to read, Toni. She has _always_ liked to read. She is such a lovely, intelligent girl. I thought you would have picked up on that by now—“

“Okay, fine, but Rousseau?” Francis winced at the Spaniard’s pronunciation of the Swiss philosopher’s name. “Why would you give her government theories and political science?”

“He’s so interesting, though! Such advanced ideas for his time. Why would I deprive her of—“

“Because she is _my ward_ ,” hissed Antonio, “and I do not appreciate you meddling with my charges.”

“If you don’t recall, I’m a Bourbon as well. I was perfectly within my right to give her things to read. I would be a fool not to; I won’t have anyone in _my_ jurisdiction being culturally backwards.”

“But dead ones are okay? I saw you at the execution. You weren’t about to do anything. You never said anything in her defense, either.”

“Neither did you.”

“I wasn’t mentioned in the trial and implied to be her _lover_ by the prosecutor!”

Francis stopped smiling. Antonio continued, unblinking.

“The attorney tried to pin her with adultery because you wrote your name in all the books you lent to her and he was convinced that they were lover’s tokens.”

Francis put the drink down, visibly shaken.

“I had no idea. I—I would _never—“_

“Of course you didn’t, you’re too busy thinking the way your culture works is the best, so you don’t think about how what you do might affect others in separate cultures! We take honor and chastity _seriously_ where I am from. I know you and her were familiar with each other but she is a married woman, Francis. She was going to _die_ because of your—your _arrogance_.”

Antonio’s half-brother’s face split into a smile, which was noted by Antonio himself when Francis began to speak, his pale face flushing pink.

“That’s _quite something_ to be said by you! You and your _honor_ locked the girl away to begin with! She wasn’t going to die because of what _I_ did, she was going to die—barbarically, I might add, you really ought to install a guillotine for such things—“

“See? _There you go._ Keep telling me about how much more civilized you are than me, by all means! I’m all ears! You’re always acting like you’re so much better! Who made you the authority on what’s a good way to die and what isn’t? Either way, you die. What does two seconds of pain mean as opposed to twenty when you’re being sent to face God?! Regardless, if you hadn’t given her those books she would have never gotten those ideas in her head and I wouldn’t be on a wild goose chase through Europe looking for not one, but TWO runaway colonies!”

“Two?”

“Piedmont went missing as well, given that he’s the one who disobeyed orders and liberated her.”

Andria’s grin faded. This, too, was noted by Antonio.

“So if Antine—“

“That’s not how it’s pronounced.”

“So if Antine,” Francis continued, not correcting his pronunciation, “had not intervened, you would have let the girl die?”

“I—“

“No, Antonio, then it’s not my fault. If you weren’t going to do anything to help her when you were capable of doing so, that doesn’t justify you coming into my office and acting like you had no other choice.”

“She’d just come back. She’d wake up a few hours later with some bad bruising, but she’d be fine and have learned her lesson.”

“Do you ever know that for sure? It’s always a toss-up, especially for a territory like that. She’s not like us, Antonio. She doesn’t have empires to back up her name. I haven’t seen her close enough lately because _someone_ decided to put her in jail, but have you noticed if she’s been aging at all?”

“When they’re that young it’s hard to tell.”

“So why would you risk it in the first place? Just beating her or giving her a public flogging would have been enough, don’t you think?”

“I…you’re right. I overreacted.”

“A little bird told me you had to scrape her consort off the ground after that whole ordeal.”

“Lovino had to understand the consequences of rebellion.”

“Lovino had no need to his childhood sweetheart martyr herself and nearly get strangled to death, either.”

Antonio bit the inside of his cheek.

“Not that this has anything to do with that, but when Serafina was asked who you were and what you did for a living, she said you were a poet.”

Francis brushed a strand of hair out of his face and closed his eyes, tipping his head back.

“She wasn’t wrong.”

*****

Lovino was under house arrest.

No one would actually call it that. But he was not allowed to leave the top floor of the castle he was moved to after his best friend—no, the closest thing he had to an older brother—had publicly defied the Crown and liberated his wife from her own execution.

He wished he could say that he had watched his wife walk to the scaffold and that he had fought hard to go to her in her final hours; that he had cried out his approval when Sardinia had liberated her.

In truth, he had begun to hyperventilate when they had announced Serafina’s charges in the square, and was doubled over and dry heaving by the time she had appeared.

He had kept playing the conversation he’d had with her over and over in his head.

 _“You are going to live. Do not leave me. You cannot_ fucking _leave me hanging like that.”_

_She had taken one look at him and her eyes said everything._

_“We’ll see what the courts say.”_

He had failed. When had he ever done something worthwhile for anyone? She was going to die because he hadn’t stood up for her. She was thrown in prison for revolution, one where he would finally reunite with his brother, and all he was doing was sitting by and watching?

The only way he knew something had happened was when he had heard Antine’s voice shouting for liberty between his retching. When he had coughed and stopped he listened closer and heard the crack of the garrote’s turning cease.

“She’s escaping,” hissed one guard to another in Catalan. “Do we apprehend them?”

“No,” said the other. “We need to make sure he stays where he is.”

The windows slammed shut. The two guards sat and idly conversed while Lovino felt like he was drowning. Antonio had come in a good hour later to see Lovino and the tears and the vomit before lifting him up and half carrying, half dragging him to a carriage.

And now, God knows how long it had been, he was here. Was he going to wait for something to happen to him? Or was he going to grow the fuck up about it and finally take charge?

The doors were all locked at the ends of the corridor. The windows all had bars on them. He was almost completely positive that the one monk that brought him up food was capable of kicking his ass. Anyone could kick Lovino’s ass. Why do you think he surrounded himself with people who would do the ass kicking for him?

However, today, the monk had made an error.

The monk had left him with a quill, ink, paper and a penknife along with his daily bread and olives. So that you won’t be so lonely, he said with a doughy smile. Lovino had given him a curt nod back, not knowing precisely how to comport himself around a man of faith.

Lovino, of course, ate the olives before getting to work (call him anything you wanted to but never call him late to dinner), gently feeling his way around the heavy stone brick walls of his room. The weakest mortar tended to be around the windows.

He gently started to scrape away at the mortar with the small knife, eyebrows raising at the fact that it crumbled against the metal so quickly. This building was older than he had thought.

Judging from how he wasn’t feeling as sickly even though he had been in solitary confinement for what felt like weeks, he was somewhere on the southern half of the Italian peninsula. He’d find out more when he got out.

At night, he wrote letters. He wrote to Antine about how much he missed him and then contemplated tearing them up. He tried to write poetry for Serafina, but burned the poems after becoming self-conscious about whether or not she would like them in the distant future. He then wrote to his little brother that he had barely seen in the past few centuries. He planned to give the letters to him personally; he vowed to be alive to do so.

It had reached the point now where he more or less knew of his brother, but not who exactly Feliciano was. He knew more that people wanted to be around Feliciano more than they wanted to be around him; he’d had enough chance encounters and rendez-vous with Feliciano as children to know that Feliciano was a laughing, charming, beautiful and sweet child where Lovino was chubby and dark and moody, hiding his face with the thumb in his mouth. He knew Antonio thought that getting Lovino meant that Antonio had gotten the short end of the stick in the custody battle with Roderich. At this point, it didn’t bother him the way it did when he was younger.

He knew he was not perfect. And when people said to him in response to that fact that no one was perfect, the image of his cherubic little brother and that beatified smile danced across his vision. His angelic pale face practically taunted him. _They say perfect people don’t exist_ , the image seemed to murmur to him, _but that’s because they’ve never met me!_

He remembered vividly one of the times Feli and him had been together. It was when they were looking at old paintings; they were in a gallery while Antonio and Roderich were off dealing with some Habsburg affairs. Physically they were just children; Romano was about eight and Feli about seven. They had been talking about angels and devils and Feli had pointed at a depiction of heaven and had said that no one wanted to paint angels Romano’s color and that Lovino better get used to being painted as a devil or a slave. Romano had remained silent, but when he got home he stole a bag of flour from the kitchens and had tried to rub his skin as white as Feliciano’s had been.

Feliciano probably wasn’t even that size anymore. Romano knew he was older than him, but was always unsure by how much; nowadays, Lovino looked about past the cusp of seventeen years old. Feli was usually just behind him, but that didn’t stop the image in his mind from being a baby. Try explaining to your friends that your inadequacies embodied themselves in the image of your little brother. Try telling your friends that you tell this apparition of a child to fuck off every day. Go on, he was waiting.

House arrest aside, it was okay by him sometimes that he was left alone. Lovino even got a four-poster bed to sleep in. It was big and cold without someone next to him. He was used to having someone pressed up next to him, even after all these months apart. He would curl up by himself each night, quietly telling an increasingly insistent baby version of his brother to fuck off with varying intensity until he fell asleep.


	18. Chapter 18

Salvatore had not made the right decision about the wolves.

Boro had definitely been mistaken; more and more wolves were coming and he had no idea where from. The soul-sucking pit of despair at the other side of the river was starting to almost look welcoming in comparison.

He did not see the wolf behind him before it sunk its teeth into his shoulder. He didn’t even have the capacity to cry out, standing stock still like a mouse looking into the eyes of a snake.

He was still in that position when Boro came lunging out of the woods and snapped the wolf’s neck.

“I commend you on your fighting spirit,” called out the Serb, running forward. “But do not be foolish! We do not need to kill all of them, just enough to make the crossing!”

They were already three quarters of the way forward; Boro was absolutely right. No need to kill them when you could just evade them.

Finally clearing the pack, the two dropped into a sprint in the hopes of evading any others. After a good five minutes of running, it seemed that they had succeeded.

They reached a bridge over the river, at which point Boro continued across and Salvatore stayed on his initial riverbank. Salvatore wished him luck with…whatever he was doing. Fighting against Sadik was never easy; he could always sympathize with those who had dealt with being under Ottoman rule or harassment.

He was musing to himself that the wolves and the whirlpool must have been the “warring factions” his father talked about until a Turkish bullet ricocheted off a tree and embedded itself in his calf. _Sister always said Hannô was not the riddling type_ , he thought to himself as he fell to his knees.

~~

Serafina was in a bathtub and scrubbing months’ worth of dirt out of her hair and off of her skin. Men who thought women were glamorous when they bathed had never actually seen a woman bathe. Thankfully, the wife had left after drawing the bath and had not asked if Serafina needed any help getting undressed; Nina was still shy about the way her body was growing and six months of improper feeding had made her even more disproportionate.

She wrung her hair out her hair after using some more of the soap. Most of the time back home she stripped and used a bucket; she wasn’t accustomed to this kind of…what was the word exactly? Was it service? She didn’t know.

She sunk back into the water, leaning against the wall of the bathtub and looking up at the high ceiling. She understood now why upper-class ladies did this so often; all she needed was a bowl of fruit and some other rich gentleman reading her poetry, and she’d be the epitome of high class. Maybe if she was a man, she could even have a cigar. Maybe one day she could have the cigar, the fruit, and the rich gentleman reading her poetry all at the same time. Hedonism was always something she aspired to but could never achieve.

She’d just gotten out of the bathtub when she heard the commotion outside; someone talking quickly in Castilian. She quickly covered herself with the robe before going _very_ quietly to the window. Why, oh, _why_ hadn’t she stolen a pistol while she was running away? The horse’s saddlebags contained only a sack of _piastre_ , a knife, bullets, and gunpowder. She went for the saddlebags hanging on the one chair in the room before the innkeeper knocked on her door.

“Signora?”

She told him to wait, that she wasn’t decent. She quickly put on her slip, pulling herself into her dress as the man walked in.

“They are looking for a girl with curly black hair and a bruise under her eye.”

She faked a smile.

“That does sound an awful lot like me.”

“They said you were a traitor to the Crown and that you were fighting to unify Italy.”

The fake smile faded very quickly from her face. He walked forward, grabbing her by her still smarting wrists. Dark brown eyes met amber. He reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol, placing it in her shaking hands.

“You ran so fast I couldn’t catch you, climbed straight out the window and down the orange tree to the stables. Your horse was already ready to go and you galloped into the woods. It was nothing like I’d ever seen before. Run, _good cousin_.”

~~

If there was anyone Salvatore did not want to see ever again for the rest of his life, it was Sadik Adnan.

And yet, here he was, being dragged into his tent with a shoulder near bitten off by a wolf and with a leg that had Turkish lead in it.

He looked the Turk dead in the eyes, in too much pain to emote.

“Good evening, sir. I see your empire is receding just like your hairline.”

Sadik guffawed as the Turkish soldier who dragged him in cracked Salvatore in the back of the head with his rifle.

“It is quite _something_ to be meeting you here, Malta! I thought you were finally dead, _kurtarıcı_. I heard your lands got repossessed by the British Empire and you slunk off like a dying dog!”

“That’s funny, sir. Funnier than your outdated weaponry.”

“But luck is on my side today! I get to keep both Serbia _and_ Malta. It’s like 1565 just rectified itself completely!”

“Who said anything about you _keeping_ me?” the Maltese boy hissed, grey eyes narrowing. “If I am a ward of the British Empire, they will find out!”

“Ah, they’ve already got control of the lands,” said Sadik, grinning. “But I don’t necessarily want your land, I want _you._ ”

“You filthy—“

He was hit in the back of the head again. Darkness.

~~

_The year was 1565. Salvatore sat in front of thousands of knights and hundreds of civilians. In the very front sat his sister and her half brother, Herakles. They had just gotten the report that the Ottomans were planning on taking Salvatore’s island by force. The Ottomans were in for a very nasty surprise._

_“Harvest all the crops,” ordered Salvatore. “All of them, every last ear of grain. I want it stored away.”_

_“But the grain is not ripened!” called a farmer._

_“Harvest them all. We cannot let the Saracens have anything to eat. We will retreat into the fortress. Poison the wells outside of it; put bitter herbs and dead animals in them. They will have no food and no water. We will eat unripened grain and fruit, but the Turks must have nothing to sustain themselves on. Is that understood?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“You,” he said, pointing to a squadron of his knights, “—will go to Fort St. Elmo. You will hold the fort until my sister comes with her battalion. Is that understood?”_

_“Sir, we do not know if we can—“_

_“Christendom depends on you holding that fort,” the boy said firmly. “We cannot let them take our island. The Saracens will not stop until we are all either Muslim or dead. Do you wish to die a servant of God, or live a prisoner of heathens?”_

_The knight lowered his eyes._

_“Yes, sir.”_

~~

Salvatore woke up with his hands tied behind his back in what he assumed was a ship bound back for Turkey.

“They did quite the number on you, didn’t they!”

He jerked forward, looking for the source of that strange, almost disembodied voice.

“Don’t worry, little knight.”

“Who are you?”

“A _friend_ ,” the voice responded. Its bearer appeared out of the shadows, reddish-blond and deathly pale. “You’ve got quite the curse on you!”

“The—“

The young man brushed his fingers across Salvatore’s trembling brow. It began to burn almost immediately, Salvatore practically gnawing his lip off to keep from screaming.

“… _uþarabasba”_

“Utherabazba?”

“That’s what it says on your forehead!”

“While you’re burning words into my forehead—“

“Well it was _already there—“_

“—can I ask what your name is?!”

“You can call me Mircea,” he said, squinting at the seared letters. “This must be that _nid_ that got cast all those years back. That was cast on you?! I woke up sweating when I felt this thing get cast. I’m almost certain it made me grow chest hair. What the hell did you do, stab his boy-toy with that pretty sword of yours? You poor bastard, Lukas must really _hate you—“_

“He had every right to hate me…”

“Sure, you probably fucked something up for him, but I don’t think it warranted a curse that makes _no situation_ turn out in your favor.”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s what a curse does! And it’s almost definitely why you’re here with me.” He grinned, showing a snaggled, pointy canine. “Isn’t it funny how life works!”

“ _Funny_ isn’t the way I would describe the past…wait, five years ago? It was cast five years ago? That…that can’t be right. I haven’t—“

“You must’ve been knocked out for a long time, my friend. That level of curse will keep you from going back to the world of the living for a _long_ time. If you were human it would have just straight up killed you. Fun, right?”

“Can you take it off?”

The Romanian looked Salvatore up and down with one arm across his stomach and the other held upwards with his delicate fingers curled, almost as if he was holding some sort of invisible wand.

“Take off that giant iron crucifix so I don’t burn my hands, and we’ll see if I can do anything.”

~~

Antine was vomiting.

“You’re a bloody _island,_ you’re a _disgrace—“_

“I live in the mountains, I don’t trust you sea-folk,” he groaned, heaving again. _“Furat chie benit dae su mare…”_

“Sorry, I don’t speak…whatever that was.”

Antine wiped his mouth.

“Those who come from the sea only come to steal.”

Arthur scoffed.

“That’s ridiculous—“

“You were a pirate. So was my little brother Antonio. The more seawater in your veins, the stickier your fingers get.” He rubbed his thumb against his fore and middle finger derisively.

“But all the proper powers have navies—“

Antine grinned.

“And what do they also usually have as well? They have the highest rate of successful pirates, corsairs, and privateers. Anyone with a boat is bad news. Take a look at my little brother—“

“Which one are we referring to now?”

“Andria. Who else? He’s a proper seafaring type, a mean little corsair if I ever knew one, and you all had to run for _fucking_ cover when he hit the mainland.”

“I beat him back.”

“And what are you?”

Arthur closed his eyes.

“A former pirate.”

“And who are the other powers with Empires? Who are the other people who went to the New World? They are also sailors.”

“Francis isn’t a sailor.”

“Francis is also neither a shepherd nor a farmer. But you all didn’t come by air or land. You came by the sea. And nothing good ever comes from the sea.”

He coughed again, getting his footing before walking back to sit near a mast. Arthur looked away.

“You know, your English is actually quite good.”

Antine snorted.

“When I tell people that you paid me a compliment just now, will they believe me?”

“No. Which is why I’m complimenting you in the first place.”

“I speak English, German, Spanish, Neapolitan, and Sardinian. Quite helpful with diplomacy, no?”

“No French?”

“Francis never bothered with Sardinian, so I never bothered with French.”

“What, did Roderich bother with Sardinian?”

“No, but…” _I wanted Roderich to be impressed with me._ “English was for the hell of it; it’s got enough Latin and German in it that it wasn’t too hard.”

“Hmph.”

Silence between the two men, which was then broken by Antine a few minutes later:

“If you find Malta, what are you going to do with him?”

“Depending on how traumatized he is, I might just leave him back in his own territory. People are rioting and in all honesty, I can’t be bothered. He could speak to them better than I could.”

“And the Empire begins to learn about cultural sensitivity!”

Arthur turned to look at the Sardinian, who was wearing that stupid grin again.

“I could throw you overboard.”

“Please. You couldn’t lift me.”


	19. Chapter 19

The boat came to a complete and utter halt, jolting Sasà and his new friend over. A box fell over and landed on Salvatore’s injured leg, causing the boy to cry out. Mircea lectured him on keeping still so that the spell would work while Salvatore wondered what it would take for him to cut off his leg and whether he really needed two legs in the first place. The entry would had not closed up yet; he could feel the infection creeping in and it did not feel like he would be able to save the leg in the first place.

“Your leg will be fine,” said Mircea cheerfully, squaring his shoulders as he readied himself again for another magical interlude.

_Wait, how did he know—_

“Just clear your mind, okay? I need you to focus on clearing yourself of bad energy. The _nid_ makes it easier for that sort of thing to collect.”

Salvatore gulped.

“Okay.”

The Romanian began muttering in something Malta assumed was his mother tongue, light gathering at his fingertips. Malta’s forehead began to burn again. Blue light enveloped Salvatore, searing his eyes. _Keep calm…clear your mind…_

The blue light became lavender, then finally the same pale red that emanated from Mircea.

“That…should do it…” said the Romanian, cheeks flushed and panting slightly. “That was _something_ , though. I could only take it off because it’s been on you for so long. If I tried to take that thing on while you had it freshly cast, I think it would have rubbed off on me too! _Real_ potent stuff. I can’t do curses like that—“

Another firm _thud_ against the hull of the ship stopped Mircea’s prattling.

“What’s going on?” said Salvatore, pulling himself backwards with a wince. The shoulder needed to be looked at as well. Mircea seemed to be distracted.

“We’re in Greece. We’ve been...oh. _Well_ , now. I best be going.”

“What?”

He turned around and seemed to vanish into thin air. Up the stairs, a door seemed to burst open as people above were yelling in a language Salvatore had not heard in a long time.

_Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump._

The person coming down the stairs was about to round the corner. Salvatore found himself trying to scramble backwards, dragging his injured leg back with him.

A shadow loomed over him. Even with the face obscured, Salvatore could make out the messy dark hair and stocky structure of the teenager in front of him.

“Herakles?”

~~

It was 1565. The Grand Harbor of Valletta was still under siege. Salvatore had just finished reading the note from the troops stationed at the beleaguered fort across the water. His hasty scrawl read:

_Hold firm and hold St. Elmo. Wait for my sister. She is coming with fresh reinforcements and arms. Christendom depends upon your strength and will. Hold your ground, my Lords. You have fought valiantly. We will celebrate greatly when this is over._

He tied the message to his falcon, Ajax, praying he would not be shot down by the Turks who were waiting outside.

“Go, boy, and come back to me,” he murmured as his bird flew off. He turned to look at his older sister.

“Serafina, you need to hurry. They’re on the end of their rope over there.”

“I was just on the way to saddle my horse.”

Herakles sat silently, nursing a broken arm and a wound to the thigh.

“Now that Herakles is incapacitated, do we have anyone to lead the archers in case of a surprise attack?” she asked, strapping a broadsword to her back.

“Bones set and heal. Scars fade. The human archers will manage fine on their own for the next few days or so,” Salvatore reassured her, looking back at Herakles. The Greek boy nodded in agreement.

Salvatore exited the fortress to see his sister out, watching her spur her horse forward. He was a halfway up to the ramparts when he saw her stop.

“Salvatore, go back inside.”

“No.”

“Salvatore, _please_.”

Her pleading was for naught. He saw exactly what she had.

It was the previously besieged members of the Knights Hospitaller who had been tasked with protecting Fort St. Elmo.

They were floating in the harbor, corpses decapitated and left with their armor on, with their headless bodies tied to crosses. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his sister charging on horseback towards a grinning Sadik, scimitar in hand and on foot. He ran back inside and grabbed the nearest fellow knight.

“Where are the Saracen prisoners?”

“In the west half of the fortress, sir, as always.”

“Bring them out onto the ramparts.”

His order was carried out in a timely manner. Salvatore could see the whites of their eyes and smell the fear on their skins as they walked past. He stood amongst them when he gave the second order.

“Slit their throats.”

Also done in a timely manner. Blood turned the ramparts’ stone a dull pink color and tainted the leather of Salvatore’s boots.

“Cut off their heads.”

“To be put on pikes?”

“Take their heads and launch them.”

“My lord?”

“Stuff them. Stuff their heads into the cannons and fire.”

The cannons were loaded with foreign and freshly dead cargo.

“On my mark.”

Serafina had disengaged with the Ottoman, riding with her support off to St. Elmo. Sadik was still standing below the besieged fortress, grinning. Always grinning. The Maltese boy stood up on the walls, back turned to the water. His wide grey eyes welled up with tears.

“Fire.”

He turned around to see the Ottoman Empire’s face as he was pelted with the severed heads of his countrymen.

Salvatore hoped that Sadik could not see that he was weeping.

~~

“This is not good,” Herakles murmured as he inspected Salvatore’s calf. He and the other Greek rebels had carried Salvatore off of the boat and further inland, leaving little else on the Turkish vessel for any other thieves. A kettle hissed in the distance.

“Take the bullet out. It can’t heal until the foreign object is gone,” Salvatore choked out as Herakles continued to prod.

“No, it’s not that.”

“It’s not the bullet in my calf that hurts?”

“Breathe,” said Herakles, voice too calm to be soothing. “I will get the bullet out soon enough, but I need to clean it up first. Either talk to me for a long while or find something to bite.” Herakles went back to get the freshly boiled water.

Salvatore elected to speak for the duration of the procedure.

“Do you have any idea where he was planning on taking me? I would imagine there’s a pretty heavy ransom on my head; he’d have no reason to keep me.”

“Sadik has never listened to reason, Salvatore,” said Herakles, flushing out the wound with hot water while the Maltese teenager hissed. “Sadik listens to his gut and his cock and not much else.”

“You didn’t ask why he was coming through?”

“He must have escaped the ship before I boarded. It was odd. He is not the type to back away from such things.”

“Herakles?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he will be back?”

“If I didn’t think he would be back, I would not be bandaging your wounds and I would be letting you heal naturally,” he said quietly, dabbing at the open wound with gauze. “I found an uncurved sword in Sadik’s cabin. I am guessing it is yours?”

“Yes.”

“And you know how to use it.”

“Yes, even after all these years. Is your aim still good?”

“The best,” he said with a slight smile, picking up a pair of dissection scissors. “If it hurts, it’s because I’m cutting away dying flesh to get to the bullet.”

Salvatore winced.

“Why haven’t you shot him yet? Remind me,” Salvatore asked, beads of sweat manifesting on his temples.

“It wouldn’t accomplish anything. He’d just come back twice as angry, like a Hydra except with anger issues instead of heads.”

_Snip, snip…snip._

“Has much changed since the last time we fought him together?”

_Snip._

“No. Not much.”

_Snip snip._

“One thing has changed. His knee. He has a bad knee.”

“What, Sadik Adnan with a trick knee?”

Salvatore could hear the faint smile in Herakles’s voice when he said “yes”.

“Should I still hit low if I come near him?” the grey-eyed boy asked, trying to look back at Herakles for some kind of camaraderie over the reference.

“He’ll expect it from you now.”

“Do you think he’ll ever have a child with how many kicks he’s received to the groin?”

“It has always been my goal in life to ensure that Turkey not reproduce,” Herakles mused, finally reaching for the bullet in Salvatore’s calf with a pair of forceps.

Salvatore felt warm, thick liquid shoot onto his back.

“Oh, dear. Hang on, I ought to bandage this quicker.”

“Was that my blood that just spurted onto my back?”

“Yes.”

“You are very calm about all of this.”

“I have seen my share of blood in places that were not violent. If you bleed in such a way, it means you are alive.”

~~

It was 15 July, 1565. Sadik was still waiting for Malta to surrender.

It was not going to happen.

The written account from the defector was spread out in front of the three, each taking the whole thing in on their own terms.

“They’re going to mount an amphibious attack at Senglea,” the girl breathed, wiping sweat off of her brow. “Boats, foot-soldiers—“

“That is typically what amphibious means, yes,” said Herakles quietly. Serafina shot a look at her brother before continuing.

“We have enough time to prepare, though. What do we do here? Salvatore, you know the terrain best.”

Salvatore hesitated, briefly rubbing his temples.

“We construct a palisade along the promontory. Add some cannons. If it doesn’t hold him off, at least it will make it difficult until reinforcements come in and we deal the killing stroke…so to speak.”

“Who brings the reinforcements?”

“I will go with the initial troops. Serafina, I want you to stay back in the woods.”

“What?”

“In that I want you to come with the reinforcements when you are called. Herakles, I want you with me. I want you to man the cannons and any long-range weapons. So…our basic structure, really.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Herakles? Get your armor.”

He and Herakles had set up the defense with their soldiers, wondering the whole time if de Valletta had been given false information and that they had all been duped. Wouldn’t it be funny if—

He quickly dodged a scimitar. The Turks had arrived.

“Sadik!”

“Churchgoing, snot-nosed little brat!” called back Sadik’s gruff voice. Herakles, unblinking, loaded a cannon and fired, destroying one of the few Ottoman ships now launching volleys at the encampment.

“Will you still call me a brat when I send you to hell?” he yelled, locking blades with the Ottoman.

“I’ll call you whatever I damn well please!”

A second, well-placed salvo from Herakles sunk the rest of the ships. The land crew looked like it was about to be defeated as well, but the Ottomans were famous in not knowing when to—

Shouts of retreat, all of which were tinged with terror

Malta managed to take a glance over at the water to see what the commotion was about.

“Eyes on me, _boy—“_

_“THE SICILIANS ARE HERE!”_

Leading the relief forces, his sister was sprinting on what he assumed was a floating bridge, but from where he was standing it looked like she was walking on water unassisted. Her sword was gleaming in her hands and her teeth were bared in a snarl.

Have you ever seen an entire band of Ottoman raiders get chased away by a dark-skinned young girl brandishing a sword almost as big as she was? He had. He would not forget it.

She had long disappeared into the woods when Salvatore looked out on the horizon to see ships. More troops from Sicily and Greece?

No. That…that was an Ottoman ship. Oh…that was _several_ ships. He began to count. How many siege guns would they have? Oh, _no._

He looked back at Herakles.

“Sixty-five guns to our five cannons,” he mouthed. Herakles shrugged.

“Time to hold the fort,” the Greek boy mouthed back.

~~

“Herakles, he found us.”

The young Greek man got up and wiped his hands.

“Where is he?”

“We’re holding him off for now, but…he wants you and “the boy”. We assume it’s your friend with the bandaged leg?”

“Yes. He’s a friend, Iannis.”

“I’m happy that you’ve found the meaning of friendship, sir, but we need someone who can physically best an angry man who weighs about fourteen stone of muscle.”

“Salvatore?”

The boy looked up.

“Please fetch your sword out of my tent. You will need it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo, we're nearing the end of this series.   
> Wanted to say thank you for reading @ all of you who have been reading! It means a lot to me. :) 
> 
> The final chapter to this installment should be up by Monday. <3
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	20. Chapter 20

It was only just freshly September in the year 1565. Sadik was at the end of his rope and everyone knew it.

“We’ll camp here. We’re close to Mdina. That’s where they want us to be for the winter.”

“If we make it to winter,” muttered one Turkish foot soldier.

“We _will_. And Europe will be ours for the taking,” Sadik assured him, setting his pack down. “We already destroyed Fort St. Elmo. We’re close to destroying Fort St. Michael. If we take Mdina, we can take the rest of this puny little island and then launch for Sicily.”

“I don’t want to see any more Sicilians.”

“Fair point. But from Sicily, we can climb our way through Italy. The very heart of Christianity lies there. Strike there, and it will all be over. We can go _home_. Do you have anyone waiting for you back home?”

“A wife, sir. And two sons.”

“ _Two sons!_ How old are they now?”

“Bayram was four when I left. I got the call to arms when my wife was in labor with Derya.”

“Bayram and Derya? Good, strong names. What is yours?”

“Serhan.”

“Serhan,” Sadik repeated, committing the man’s face to memory.

Sadik gave the foot soldier a hearty thump on the back.

“Well if we do well here we can get you back to Turkey so you can hold your baby son, then!”

Serhan the foot soldier gave him a tired smile.

“I hope so, sir.”

They would be going home sooner than they thought.

“Do you see the campfires?” muttered the Maltese soldier to the little boy in armor next to him. Salvatore was nursing a bruise on his cheek. The tired, battle worn expression on his face made it easy to forget that he was physically about nine years old. “The smoke off in the distance. They’re headed towards us after St. Michael. I’m…how did they _know_?”

“They’re desperate,” replied Salvatore, squinting at the darkening horizon. “They’re following us closely because we’re where the food is. Look at how fewer fires there are now than in July. They don’t have any supplies left.”

“When is your sister coming with the reinforcements?”

“Tomorrow morning. She’s stationed at St. Paul’s Bay right now. She’s waiting for the signal.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Do we have more than just this cannon?”

“No. We only have two cannon balls, too.”

Salvatore closed his eyes.

“Load it.”

“Now?”

“Yes. Don’t let them get comfortable. I’ll go down myself.”

Sadik was on the other side of the camp when the first cannonball shattered the encampment; the sound of his countrymen’s screams enough to cause him to feel physically ill.

“What happened?”

“The Sicilians! It must be the Sicilians!” cried one Turk, grabbing for his bow. “The Maltese got reinforcements! We have to retreat!”

Sadik quickly took inventory, counting each of the heads of his squadron before realizing one was missing. Sadik did not hesitate before barreling into the wreckage, not heeding the fire of the dry trees around him. He stopped running when he heard the unmistakable groan of a casualty.

“Come on, now. We need to get you home.”

The man’s leg was shattered into a bloody pulp.

“ _Korkma, oğlum._ What’s your name?”

“Arda…” he choked out as Sadik pulled him upwards and out from under the burning log.

“Arda? You’ll make it home. I promise you. You are going home. You will see Istanbul again—“ Sadik was running back out of the flames. “—the war will be won in your honor and you will be blessed, Arda. I promise you, Arda…”

He handed Arda off to a medic. “Follow the retreat, make sure the others do as well. And make sure he is taken care of. I’m going back in to see who or what else I can save.”

“Sadik, the smoke…”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.” The reassuring smile on his face seemed to offset the gray undertone his skin was taking.

He did not have to go far back into the camp to find the Maltese boy standing amongst the flames, sword in hand and armor glistening.

“Why would you do this?” Sadik asked, reaching for his scimitar.

“You are my enemy, invading my land and threatening my faith by your very existence. You act like what I do is foolish,” he replied, walking forward. “Now if I win here, you go. Why would I not want you to be gone?”

Their swords clashed, Sadik having a physical advantage even in his decline of power.

“My forces have already retreated,” he hissed, staving off a chopping motion from the young island. “There is no point to this.”

“Yes, there is,” growled Salvatore, the feral tone his voice taking Sadik by surprise. “Because I don’t want you to retreat. I want you to die.”

Across the bay, a Sicilian woman saw the fire and the burning villages. She did not wait for the signal before sprinting in the direction of the flames, one hand on the reins of her horse and the other, white-knuckled, on the grip of her sword. _Salvatore, I’m coming._

Sadik had finally gotten the upper hand; Salvatore’s movements were slowed by the weight of the armor he was wearing. The light leather pieces that Sadik sported, for one thing, was not cooking him alive like the metal and mail the Maltese boy had put on.

“What do you _care_ , really? Jesus is one of our prophets as well.”

“Jesus Christ was the _last_ spokesperson of God. And it’s not a question of religious text; it’s a question of _practice_.” Their swords clashed again at the fullers. “Are you so out of witty things to say that you’re trying to debate scripture with me?”

 _Crash._ Frenzied whinnying in the distance. More tree limbs were beginning to fall around them. Salvatore finally fell over, skin blistering under the heat of his armor. Sadik’s blade rested, lazily, under Salvatore’s stubborn chin.

“Don’t you come in acting like you—“

Malta’s wide eyes were fixed on some point beyond Sadik’s shoulder. Oh, _fuck—_

He could barely see it just out the corner of his eye. Sicily in midair, her sword poised in a killing stroke. He had no time to react before the blade struck between his shoulder blades, dragging through him and gnawing down to the small of his back. She had cleaved his spinal cord in two. Death, however temporary for him, fogged his brown eyes.

The Siege was finished.

~~

It was two and a half centuries later. The scar still throbbed between the Ottoman’s shoulders. If you looked closely at Salvatore’s skin, you could see the areas where that armor had seared through his under layers and fused with his flesh.

He knew the only reason none of these _uylak_ who preferred to be called “freedom fighters” were trying to apprehend him was because he was large, hairy, and yelling out challenges in every language he knew how to speak. That had been his _modus operandi_ for many centuries at this point.

“Are you going to face me like a man?”

“I am only thirteen. I will face you as my appropriate age, no more, no less.” He’d brought that damn sword. Good thing Sadik was also an old-fashioned bastard and had a blade with him at all times as well.

“Don’t give me that. That thing is dull. You really think you can do anything with a dull sword?”

“Dull sword just means I have to hit you harder.”

Have you ever heard the sound of a broadsword clashing with a scimitar? It is not nearly as pretty as one would think. It grates, moans at its own usage. Nothing complains more loudly and unabashedly about doing its job than a sword does.

Salvatore had the benefit of having a weapon that could counter the movements of Sadik’s well-oiled machine of a sword arm. Sadik, conversely, had the advantage of being enormous.

“Why can’t we just talk this out like gentlemen?”

_Clash._

“Oh, really? Talk it out? I thought you wanted me to…what was it you said back then? Oh, right. You wanted me to die.”

He feinted towards Salvatore but then went for his bad shoulder, just grazing the bandages and causing the boy to wince.

“I’m a peaceful person, I really—“

“You are _not._ You launch _severed heads of my soldiers_ at me and try to tell me you’re a pacifist?”

“Only after you pushed me—“

“ _Pushed_?” The scimitar smacked the cross-guard of Salvatore’s sword. “Hardly at all. A man that was _pushed_ to be ugly would not be so ready to do ugly things to that level.”

“You crucified—“

“It was seven men or so. How many prisoners did you kill? Do you even remember? It was enough to load all your cannons; it was far more than seven.”

“You are violent.”

“Yes, I am.” _Chunk._ The scimitar was lodged into the earth and a Turkish leather boot was lodged into his opponent’s ribs, projecting Salvatore backwards. “From the state of that sword, you’ve been using it an _awful_ lot. The blade looks recently redone, too, so that means that all that dulling has taken place in what, the past few years?”

Sadik could see the whites of Salvatore’s wide, oh-so-innocent eyes before the Maltese boy squeezed them shut.

“I do not like conflict—“

“Yes you do! Look at you! You reached for your sword and _then_ only said you wanted to talk when I reached for my own!”

Salvatore scrambled backwards towards his sword.

“The world was damn _abuzz_ when you vanished. And after five years of solitude, you still do not admit who you are! Don’t act like you are above violence! Who are you?”

“I am the younger brother of Sicily and half-brother of Roman Italy, son of Carthage and Old Arabia—“

“I’m not asking for your family tree, boy! Who are _you?!”_

The foot landed again on Salvatore’s abdomen. Salvatore grabbed the offending limb, pulling on it and causing the larger man to fall on his back.

“I am _Malta!_ ”

~~

On the other side of the city, British sails were spotted at the Athenian docks. Two men disembarked from the ship, the blond one holding something in his arms. Both were slim, narrow-shouldered, and clearly not Greek.

“So you steal a boy.”

“I did not _steal—“_

_“You steal a boy. You steal a small child.”_

“Fine.”

“You _lose_ the boy.”

“He ran away—“

“ _You lose the boy as well.”_

“Okay.”

“You steal a boy, lose him, and then steal his damn dog?”

“He was languishing away at a pier in Naples. He hadn’t touched the food set out for him. I was doing both him and Salvatore a _favor_. Plus he will be very useful for tracking.”

The little dog’s tail began to thump against Arthur’s elbow at hearing his master’s name.

“You know, my cousin tried that when Salvatore first…left.”

“Did it work?”

“Nope.” He hesitated before finally adding that his cousin had forgotten that dogs could not track scents across the ocean.

Arthur snorted, looking down at the wriggling bundle in his arms.

“And people wonder why she never became an empire.”

“Hm. Put the dog down,” he advised, noticing that the animal had escaped Arthur’s grasp and was now smothering the Englishman’s face with decidedly unwanted licks. “He’ll behave himself.”

The dog hit the pier and trotted just ahead of them.

“He ought to.”

~~

Salvatore was always either running or was about to be running.The Turk wasn’t going to be chasing him any time soon, though.

“Herakles!”

The Greek man almost imperceptibly turned his head.

“Where can I get the fastest with a ruined leg and an agenda?”

“Head that way to the Placa. Lay low until dark, then you can sneak onto a ship. Pretend to be a serviceman until then. No one cares about servicemen. Lucky for you. Not lucky for them.”

~~

“Any idea where to look for Herakles in the first place?”

Arthur looked baffled.

“I would assume you would know. Aren’t you two brothers?”

“I’m going to ignore that _blatant_ slight on my mother’s honor,” Antine replied, calling the dog to heel, “and tell you that I have never had the slightest blood relation to Ancient Greece. Or Rome, for that matter; I’m no more a blood brother of Herakles than I am a blood brother of Lovino.”

“So you don’t speak any Greek?”

“No.”

“Speak any Turkish?”

Antine burst out into staccato peals of laughter, causing a nearby flock of gulls to take flight.

“That’s an even _worse_ idea.”

“Fine, fine. Let’s just sit down somewhere and…wait, do you have a map of Athens?”

“What makes you think I would have a map of Athens? _You_ are the one that was on the way here before I showed up.”

“Illegally.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right. But harboring a fugitive is just as illegal as evading arrest, so who are we now other than two criminals in the back-alleys of Europe?”

“So first order of business is we find a map,” stated Arthur, ignoring Antine’s retort completely. “Second order is that we sit down and mark where we can find Herakles.”

“Agreed.”

~~

Salvatore was practically hopping on one foot by the time he reached the Placa, where he accosted the first serviceman he came across.

“If we trade clothes, I will pretend to be you and give you the money I make at the end of your shift.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to try it without committing. And I enjoy manual and emotional labor with little to no gratitude from those who receive it.”

The serviceman looked like he was ready to tear his shirt off then and there. Why not give his shirt to a boy who spoke strange, archaic Greek? It wasn’t like they could do anything to stop him.

“Fine, whatever. I work till six.”

“Hold my sword?”

The steward squinted at the young thing in front of him, a 17th century broadsword outstretched for the serviceman to grasp. Was this a prank? He didn't care. He took the break, took the sword, and went off into the bushes to change and get ready to spend the next few hours smoking and reading a novella. 

~~

Antine and Arthur were lost. This was to be expected of both of them.

“This is why Spain discovered America before you did. If you had tried first you would have accidentally gone to the North Pole, froze to death, and died.”

“Spain discovered America because Antonio doesn’t know the damn difference between left and right.”

“Yeah, and he got an entire continent out of the deal. You could do worse.”

Arthur pursed his lips, muttering something about beginner’s luck while finally stumbling upon the terrace of an eating-house. Not that they hadn’t seen others since arriving in Athens; Arthur just hadn’t found one prior to this one that met his specifications.

“Sit out here, let me ask anyone inside if they have a map.”

Antine called Pepe back to him. The dog sat obediently at the Sardinian’s side. That abruptly changed when a steward came and poured Antine wine. The dog began to whine, shake, and sneeze at the newcomer’s feet. He said something in Greek, which Antine never understood and refused to, and then went on his way. Pepe was beside himself. Antine reached down and began to gently scratch behind the dog’s ears.

Arthur bumped into the steward on the way back out onto the terrace, apologizing curtly before moving on to sit across from Antine.

“I found a map, ten matches, and two cigars in the loo.”

“Why—“

“I don’t ask questions anymore, I just take what I’m given and work with it.”

He spread the map out in front of him. The steward came back to fill Arthur's glass and Pepe began to whine again. 

“Pepe, _arresetta.”_

Arthur quietly noted that the steward was limping before looking about for a clock.

“What time is it?”

Antine pulled a pocket watch out of his stolen clothes.

“It is…fifteen till six.”

“Fifteen till? Well,” Arthur spread the map further, trying to even out the creases.

“If you were a teenage Greek boy, where would you be?”

Antine thought back to the letters he’d seen in Spain’s office.

“Rebellion.”

“Pardon?”

“There’s a resistance movement to Ottoman occupation going on currently,” Antine explained. “If we know where the freedom fighters are, we will almost certainly find Herakles with them.”

“Okay, that vaguely changes the question. If I was a resistance fighter, where would you be?”

“Well for one thing, not in any of the areas marked 'police station'.”

“Unless you were doing a very bad job as a freedom fighter,” muttered Arthur.

The steward came hobbling back out a third time and Pepe broke free from Antine’s grasp, bowling the steward over and jumping on the young man’s chest. The bottle of wine the steward had been holding went flying, shattering a few meters away. Antine got a good look at the young steward’s face, which Pepe was covering in frantic kisses: a long, thin scar draped itself along the boy’s right cheekbone. A nose and a chin that promised prominence one day once the child hit adulthood. Thick black hair, just like Antine’s. The steward’s eyes opened. Wide, grey eyes. Antine knew those eyes. Antine was roaring Salvatore’s name and lunging forward, grasping the Maltese child in his arms.

“Don’t you _ever_ run off like that again are you alright that's a new scar where did you get that scar who did that to you you don’t know how worried we all were don’t put that stress on us and we love you no matter what but just tell us if you need to—“

“Antine, you’re shouting and you haven’t that kind of jurisdiction.”

Salvatore looked up at the man he had spent the last five years running from.

“Sir.”

“Salvatore.”

“I have a bullet wound in my leg and just got out of a swordfight with the Ottoman Empire a few hours ago. The bullet wound is not healing properly because I am not on my land proper. Sir.”

“Salvatore.”

“You will let me stay on my _fucking island—“_

Antine's knuckles rapped against the boy's unscarred cheek.

“Watch your language.”

The clock chimed six.

“My work is done. I have to give the man his clothes back. But before I leave…Antine, why are you here and not my sister or brother?”

Both men visibly tensed up. Antine reached for his full glass of wine and downed it in one gulp. 

"We'll talk later." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the final installment! thanks so much for reading! pls leave kudos and/or comments they warm and fuel my gay little heart 
> 
> Notes on Turkish:  
> Korkma, oğlum: Be strong, brother.   
> Uylak: closest thing in Turkic mythology to our Western notion of a goblin/gremlin
> 
> Notes on Sardinian:  
> Arresetta: stop it 
> 
> @ ppl who want to know what happens to serafina and romano: there is a spinoff coming regarding the italian revolution. it will be lit i promise. 
> 
> my tumblr is kuuer if you guys have requests or comments! <3 thanks so much y'all


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